60 Report of Schimmel § Co. April/October 1917. 



oil is optically active and its specific gravity, refractive index, and freezing point are 

 lower than the above-mentioned figures. 



Although safrol is the main component of sassafras oil, it would be quite wrong 

 to sell it as sassafras oil, as on the manufacturing scale it is made from cheap camphor 

 oil and is accordingly much less expensive; to dispose of it as sassafras oil is flatly 

 fraudulent. 



This case again draws attention to the necessity of great care when buying volatile 

 oils nowadays. 



Spike Oil. Some years ago }. C. Umney 1 ) put forward the demand that oil of 

 spike should contain 30 to 40 percent, of alcohols, calculated as linalol; oils with 

 less were to be suspected as being adulterated with rosemary oil. He indicated the 

 following constants for pure spike oil: di 5 o 0.9Q5 to 0.915; « D to +7°; soluble in 

 1 to 3 vols, of 70 per cent, alcohol; alcohol content (determined by acetylation) over 

 30 per cent. Since then one has found that unadulterated spike oils also exist which 

 are slightly lasvorotatory (up to — 2°). 



Umney' 2 ) has now examined more thoroughly the amount of acetylisable compounds 

 in spike oil. He divides spike oils into three classes: high grade ones with over 

 35 per cent, of alcohols, low grade ones containing 30 to 35 p. c, and adulerated ones 

 with less than 30 per cent. He gives the following constants for a number of oils in form 

 of a table, viz., 



For oils of the 1 st class the specific gravity is 0.900 to 0.918; « D — 5 to +4° 5'; 

 the alcohol content 35.0 to 41.4 per cent. 



Oils of the 2 nd class have the specific gravity of 0.900 to 0.922; « D — 3 to +6°. 



For adulterated oils (3 rd class) Umney adds the following figures: specific gravity 

 0.897 to 0.921; « D — 2° 30' to +12° 30'. 



It is really «hard to determine how far the data given by Umney may be used as 

 a guide in the investigation of these oils; our opinion, however, is that the lower limits 

 given for the specific gravity are rather too low. In the case of pure oils we have 

 never found a lower value than 0.904, not even in oils which we have manufactured 

 ourselves in the South of France from selected material. Accordingly, it appears to 

 us that a specific gravity below 0.904 with simultaneous lzevorotation and high alcohol 

 content indicates the presence of lavender oil which can easily have been added by 

 the plants worked up being mixed with lavender, as lavender and spike often grow 

 close together. An admixture of lavandine, the hybrid between lavender and spike, is 

 also imaginable. In any case Umney's data must be rigorously tested with warranted 

 pure spike oil before they can obtain currency as standards. 



Lavender flowers are generally used externally in the shape of herb-cushions and 

 of infusions for the local treatment of rheumatism as slight irritants, whereas they 

 are only rarely employed nowadays internally as stimulants and antispasmodics, for 

 instance for the treatment of flatulence and colic. Quite by chance, namely in con- 

 sequence of a change by mistake, Morpurgo 3 ) ascertained that spike flowers (the 

 blossoms of the large lavender, Lavandula Spica, D.C.), have a very pronounced 

 diuretic effect. An infusion produced a strong polyuria which, however, disappeared 

 again in a short time. As the urine did not show the presence of any abnormal 



!) Chemist and Druggist 52 (1898), 166; Report April 1898, 48. — 2 ) Perfum. Record 7 (1916), 239. 

 Klinisch-therap. Wochenschr. 1915, 459; Merck's JahresbericM 29 (1915), 288. 



