— 79 — 



the price. Unfortunately the supplies of the Thuringian distillate, 

 already referred to in our last Report, are very insignificant, for which 

 reason it has not yet been feasible to bring back the price to a normal 

 figure. It is to be hoped that the Thuringian producers will not fail 

 to take advantage of the situation this year, so that it may become 

 possible ere long to leave the Swiss producers, with their exaggerated 

 demands, severely alone. The scarcity of the oil has of course been 

 the signal for a number of firms to endow the international market 

 with all sorts and descriptions of inferior compounds, attracting atten- 

 tion, to be sure, because of their low prices, but wanting both as to 

 the constants and the delicate odour of the genuine oil. Any consumer 

 may prepare such products much more cheaply himself by having 

 recourse to Siberian pine-needle oil. The last-named article is steadily 

 gaining favour among users who are compelled to employ a low- 

 priced oil for the purpose of scenting varnishes, lubricants, dressings, 

 greases, etc. There has been no lack of pine oil from Abies pectinata D. C. 

 and Pinus pumilio Haenke, and we are justified in asserting that the 

 difficulties which were formerly experienced in procuring these varieties 

 are now probably removed for good. 



We avail ourselves of this opportunity to point out that the de- 

 signation Oleum Pini silvestris, which is frequently applied to oil from 

 fir cones (templin oil, Oleum templini) is quite a misnomer, and gives 

 rise to constant confusion, for which reason it is desirable that retail- 

 traders as well as others should gradually accustom themselves to 

 accuracy in referring to the oil. We again emphatically lay stress 

 upon the fact that although Oleum Pini silvestris, that is to say, oil 

 made from the needles of the common pine (Pinus silvestris L.), has 

 often been distilled on experimental scale, yet, owing to its somewhat 

 disagreeable odour, it has never acquired popularity, and has therefore 

 never been manufactured on a large scale. Hence, as we have already 

 stated on a previous occasion 1 ), it plays no part at all as a commer- 

 cial article. 



The constant confusion of this oil with oil from fir cones [Abies 

 pectinata D, C.) has been the cause why genuine oil from pine-needles, 

 notwithstanding that is unobtainable commercially, has nevertheless 

 been incorporated into Pharmacopoeias, for example in the Russian 

 Pharmacopoeia and in the Supplement to the 4 th Edition of the German 

 Pharmacopoeia. At the time when we reviewed these books 2 ) we pointed 

 out that it was quite out of place to make such an oil official, seeing 

 that it was unobtainable. In order to obviate useless correspondence, 



*) Gildemeister and Hoffmann, The Volatile Oils, p. 258. 

 2 ) Report October 1904, 95; October 1906, 94. 



