November 16, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
385 
Por there is certainly something instinctive in the uni¬ 
versal and continual liking of mankind for perfumes. 
Without doubt this is rather a sensual refinement than a 
natural desire. But the same thing has happened with 
perfumes as with drinks and music,—habit has become 
second nature ; the senses have acquired a taste for this 
particular intoxication, which charms them, and hides 
painful realities. m 
It is in religion that we recognize the earliest employ - 
ment of perfumes. Nothing noble or sacred could be 
imagined without the intervention of their influence. 
Perfumes w’ere held to dispose the gods to listen to thev ows 
addressed to them in the temples where incense burned 
and spread its balmy vapours. From the highest anti¬ 
quity the priests of various religions had recourse to the 
employment of odoriferous substances. Five times 
daily the disciples of Zoroaster placed odours before 
the altar where burned the sacred fire. Moses, m the 
Book of Exodus, gives the composition of two liturgical 
perfumes. The Greeks gave to perfumes a hign p.ace 
in their ingenious mythological fictions; they believed 
that the gods always announced their presence by an 
ambrosial odour. Thus Yirgil, in speaking of Venus, 
“ Avertens rosea cervice refulsit, 
Ambrosiseque comae divimun vertice odorem 
Spiravere.” 
The employment of perfumes in religious ceremonies 
doubtless, had for its object to provoke a kind of intoxi¬ 
cation in the priests and priestesses, and to mask the 
smell of the blood and putrid matters resulting from the 
sacrifices. The Christian religion borrowed from Pa¬ 
ganism the use of perfumes in religious ceremonies. 
There was even a time when the Church of Rome 
possessed territory in the East devoted exclusively to 
plantations of trees yielding balsamic resins. 
Besides these public uses in ancient times, perfumes 
were frequently employed in private life. In reading 
ancient history few things are more astonishing than 
what appertains to this subject. Amongst the Jews the 
use of perfumes was confined within proper limits by 
the prescriptions of the Mosaic law, being reserved for 
religious worship. But with the Greeks it attained an 
excessive extension and refinement. They deposited 
their clothes in scented coffers; they burnt aromatics 
during their meals; perfumed their wines, and covered 
the head with perfumes at a banquet. At Athens the 
perfumers had shops which were used as places of 
assembly. Appolonius, a disciple of Herophilus, has 
left a treatise on perfumes, wdiich proves that even in 
regard to the extraction of essences, the Greeks had 
arrived at a surprising perfection. Neither the prohi¬ 
bitions of Solon nor the anathemas of Socrates could 
arrest the spread of this passion. The Romans inherited 
it from the Greeks, and added to the perfumes of the 
East those of Italy and Gaul. They used them with pro¬ 
fusion to scent then- baths and chambers, beds and bever¬ 
ages, and scattered them upon the heads of their guests. 
The awning that covered the amphitheatre was steeped 
in perfumed water, which fell, as a gentle rain, upon the 
heads of the public. Even the Roman eagles were, 
before a battle, covered with the finest essences. At 
the funeral of his wife, Poppma, Nero burnt upon the 
pyre more incense than Arabia produced in a whole 
year. It is said, also, that one at least, who had 
been proscribed by the Triumvirs, was betrayed by the 
odours that he cari'ied and w r as so discovered to the 
soldiers sent to seek him. Besides the perfumes ex¬ 
tracted from mint, marjoram and violet, which were the 
most common, the ancients frequently used the rose and 
various aromatics, such as spikenard, cinnamon, balm 
of Gilead, etc. 
It is curious to notice that the use of perfumes, brought 
to Rome with the customs of the Greeks, was in its turn 
introduced with the Latin customs into France and the 
north of Europe, and chiefly by the Roman religion. _ In 
fact it passed from religious ceremonies into political 
ceremonies, and thence into private life. Among the 
presents that Haroun-al-Raschid sent to Charlemagne 
were large quantities of perfumes. In the middle ages, 
monarchs and the great barons washed their hands before 
and after a repast in rose water; some even indulged in 
gushing fountains of aromatic waters. At that time too 
it was customary to carry the dead to the place of sepul¬ 
ture with the face uncovered, and place in the coffins 
burning perfumes. The French monarchy constantly 
showed an unbridled liking for these luxuries. Marshal 
Richelieu used perfumes in such excess that he was no 
longer sensible to them, and habitually lived in an atmo¬ 
sphere so loaded with them as to cause indisposition to 
people who visited him. Madame Tallien, upon coming 
out from a bath of strawberries and raspberries, used to 
cause herself to be gently rubbed with sponges dipped 
in perfumed milk. Finally, Napoleon every morning 
poured eau de cologne upon his head and shoulders. 
CONNECTION BETWEEN CHEMICAL PROPERTIES 
AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION.* 
BY THOMAS B. PHASER, M.D., F.R.S.E., E.R.C.P.E. 
Amon°’ the numerous elementary substances or chemical 
compounds the action of which has been investigated 
it is difficult, if not impossible, to find two that possess 
exactly the same physiological action, h ow, as one 
elementary substance is distinguished from every other 
elementary substance, and one compound substance is 
likewise distinguished from all other compound sub¬ 
stances, by the possession of certain special chemical 
properties, it is obviously suggested that a relationship 
exists between tbe chemical properties and tlie physio o- 
p-ical action of active substances. 1 N 0 doubt analogies, 
of a close and striking description, occur between the 
physiological actions of different substances; but these 
analogies tend to bring more distinctly into view the 
relationship referred to, by showing that similar physio¬ 
logical effects are often produced by substances whic i 
resemble each other in many of their chemical proper¬ 
ties. For instance, the various salts of potash m a 
remarkable manner paralyse the heart s action, those ot 
ammonia accelerate the circulation and produce spasms 
and o-eneral convulsions; and, indeed, the geneial truth 
of the proposition, enunciated by Dr. Blake m 1839—to 
which, however there are several exceptions—that the salts 
of the same base have analogous actions, is now uniiei- 
sally recognized. To the industry of this observer ve 
are indebted also for another general proposition of great 
interest which bears upon this relationship, beyeral 
chemical substances possess the property of crystallizing 
in the same form, and of replacing each other m crystal¬ 
line compounds without alteration ot the characteristic 
geometrical figure; in other words, they possess the 
property of isomorphism. The physiological action of a 
large number of inorganic substances belonging to dif¬ 
ferent isomorphic groups has been examined by Di. 
Blake The symptoms that were observed have led 
him to believe that, with a few exceptions, a striking 
analogy exists between the isomorphic relations and the 
physiological action of the substances examined an ana- 
lo°y to which he has given expression _ by the statement 
that “ isomorphic substances produce similar effects. 
Not only is there evidence to show that substances 
which resemble each other in their chemical properties 
may possess physical actons of a similar ■ 
weight of elementary bodies forms an important cka- 
-actor by which they may be distinguished from eac 
>ther. Dr. Rabuteau has published an extensive and 
* Abstracted from a Course of Lectures delivered before 
the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and printed in 
the ‘ British Medical Journal.’ 
