Ill 
tolerates such abuse. Of Queen Wilhelmina the same newspaper-para- 
graph mentions that every morning there is added to her bath a pint 
of Eau de Cologne. The notion of many great ladies, that they can 
improve, or even only preserve, their complexion by such additions, is 
of course wrong. The mother of the King of Spain prefers to Eau 
de Cologne an Eau d'Espagne, unknown to Science. Eau de Cologne, 
whose exact composition is naturally kept secret, has been introduced 
from time to time into chemists' shops by some Pharmacopoeias as 
Aqua coloniensis , or Spiritus coloniensis. Nowadays our Pharmacopoeia 
Germanica no longer attempts to compete with genuine Eau de Cologne. 
Naturally, fashion also reigns in the realm of perfumes and prefers 
at one time heliotrope, and at another ylang-ylang. Jockey club, or 
elder-blossom, and then again tuberose, jasmine, violet, musk, etc. 
It is a remarkable fact that chemistry has recently detected in 
perfumes some substances, which in concentrated form lose their odour 
completely, and further, even such which have a nasty smell when con- 
centrated. As a proof of the last-named fact I would mention that 
oil of jasmine -flowers contains the malodorous substance indol, and 
Abyssinian civet the evil-smelling skatol ^). Indol and skatol are two 
characteristic products of putrefaction of the intestines, and skatol 
possesses in an exquisite degree the specific odour of faeces. 
We are nowadays able to compose artificially from the individual 
components the perfume, for example, of the oils of orange-blossoms, 
ylang-ylang, jasmine, etc., and even to produce perfumes which do not 
occur in nature. Vanillin, heliotropin, irone, ionone, coumarin, nerolin, 
terpineol, benzaldehyde, and nitrobenzene, are chemically uniform substan- 
ces of extraordinary aroma, which can partly be produced artificially. Most 
plants, however, are not satisfied with one single substance, but produce 
several; and even at different periods of vegetation the composition of 
the odorous principle in one and the same plant frequently varies 
considerably. According to Semmler, all organic perfumes loiown up 
to the present can be reduced chemically to four fundamental types. 
But unfortunately the structure of many, partly most ancient, and 
especially animal perfumes, such as musk, ambergris, castoreum, and 
civet, is still unknown. It follows that with these also, there is enough 
work for chemistry for many decades to come. What is bought under 
the name of Moschus arteficialis, are trinitrobutyl derivatives of toluol, 
xylol, and allied substances. These interesting compounds have no 
doubt a striking musk -like odour, but they have most certainly a 
totally different composition, and their physiological action is wholly 
different from that of animal musk. Our knowledge of vegetable musk, 
i. e. of oil of ambrette - seeds (from Abelmoschus moschatus Moench 
^) Compare our Berichte October 1900, p. 99, and October 1902, p. 112. 
