April 12, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
803 
quantities for subcutaneous injections ; neglect of 
this precaution lie has known to lead to several 
accidents calculated to bring discredit upon this 
method of administering medicines. One difficulty 
occurs in the varying sizes of the syringes used. 
The plan adopted by him for securing his object is 
to weigh the syringe when full of the solvent and 
again when empty, the difference showing the capacity 
of the syringe. The number of half-turns of the 
piston necessary to empty the syringe is then counted, 
and the same number of milligrams, or other definite 
quantity, of the drug added to the quantity of solvent 
representing the capacity of the syringe. Each half¬ 
turn of the piston will then represent a definite 
quantity, only limited by the solubility, of the drug. 
For instance, suppose that the syringe contains 1T7 
grams of water, and the piston requires twenty-one 
half-turns. If twenty-one milligrams of the drug be 
added to 1T7 grams of water, each half-turn will 
represent one milligram of the medicament. The 
formula will then be to put into the quantity of solvent 
representing the capacity of the syringe as many 
milligrams or other definite quantity of the drug as 
there are half-turns of the piston. 
The strengths of the solutions used by M. Constantin 
Paul are as follows :— 
Sulphate of atropia . ^ millgr. to the half-turn. 
Hydrochlorate of narceia 1 „ „ 
Hydrochlorate of codeia . 1 „ „ 
Sulphate of strychnia . . 1 „ „ 
Hydrochlorate of morphia 2 „ „ 
PERFUMES PHYSIOLOGICALLY AND 
COMMERCIALLY CONSIDERED.* 
BY JAMES PATON. 
The art of the perfumer is to the human nose what the 
art of the sculptor or the painter is to the eye, or the art 
of the composer to the ear. The perfumer’s function is 
more purely aesthetic than that of the cook, whose art is 
inseparably combined with the most purely utilitarian and 
necessary of all offices. The eye, the ear, and the nose, 
besides all having the most important functions of direct 
utility to discharge, have each a separate aesthetic side, 
and although we cannot lay claim to the same lofty, wide, 
and ennobling range of influence on behalf of the nose as 
are fairly due to the other two organs, still, in its humble 
and limited way, it contributes to the pure sensuous 
pleasures of mankind. And just as the function of the 
nose as a minister of pleasurable sensation is thus com¬ 
paratively humble, so the perfumer, as artist, must be re¬ 
garded as very low in the scale of nobility compared with 
a Titian or a Canova, a Handel or a Rossini. Neverthe¬ 
less, the aesthetic functions of the nose deserve something 
better than the contempt with which that much-abused 
organ and its functions are generally treated, and it is 
about as unreasonable to call a young gentleman who 
smells very sweetly the hard names which are usually 
directed against him, as it is to scoff at the old lady whose 
soul delights in the mechanical strains of a musical-box. 
The taste in both cases is simple in its nature ; it requires 
little cultivation for its development, and it affords a real 
if not very profound gratification. 
The art of the perfumer can lay claim to the most 
venerable antiquity. In a certain sense, of course, the 
enjoyment of perfume is coeval Avith the existence of the 
human race, as the flowers which bloomed in Eden must 
have ministered to the gratification of the senses of the 
progenitors of our race. But beyond this the collection 
and preparation of substances, on account of their odori¬ 
* Read at a meeting of the North British Branch of the 
Pharmaceutical Society, March 28, 1873. 
ferous properties, must have existed almost from the 
dawn of human time. Perfumes occupied a prominent 
place in all religious services from the earliest ages, and to 
the present day the burning of incense forms a feature in 
the devotional exercises of nearly every system of worship 
under the sun. It would be an endless and useless task 
to quote authorities for such usages from our own Scrip¬ 
tures, or from the writings of the pagan authors, as they 
all teem with allusions to the habit, and are perfectly 
familiar to every one of us. The source of the word 
“perfume ”—per fumum, by or through smoke,—at once 
points to the origin of the practice, and tells us that the 
art which combines the delicate and refreshing odours of 
the fashionable perfumer had its remote springs in the 
incense burnt on the altars of the patriarchs of mankind. 
To trace the development of the art from these rude 
beginnings, the strange part it has played among the 
usages and superstitious practices of mankind, the impor¬ 
tant place that odoriferous substances have occupied in 
the commerce of nations, and the progress and extension 
of the art till it has arrived at the dimensions it possesses 
at the present day, would be a task of much interest and 
importance. But at present we content ourselves with some 
preliminary observations on the nature of the sensation 
we term an odour, the organs concerned in its experience, 
and the relation of perfumes or pleasing odours to pungent 
and other disagreeable smells ; and having thus arrived 
at a conception of the position and relations of perfumes, 
I propose to make a few remarks on the chief sources from 
which the perfumer draws his scent-yielding substances. 
It may be doubted whether anything is really known 
regarding the actual composition and nature of the sub¬ 
stance of most of the pleasing odours. We know per¬ 
fectly well the bodies which yield odours, and chemists 
can tell with absolute precision what is their chemical 
structure ; but although they can further tell the condi¬ 
tions essential to the sensation of smell, the subtle essence 
which gives rise to it appears to be too ethereal for human 
detection or manipulation. A grain of musk will perfume 
millions of cubic feet of atmospheric air, and still it con¬ 
tinues apparently a grain of musk. The following minute 
quantities of different substances spread out on the sur¬ 
face of smell cause a distinct sensation : 
Phosphoretted hydrogen . . aFoo grain. 
Sulphuretted „ . . 3 oroo » 
Bromine. toooo >> 
Oil of resin. tj oooo'ij >> 
A still smaller quantity of musk than the last given 
smells stronolv, but the actual measure has not been 
ascertained. 
It is assumed that, for the perception of an odour, it is 
necessary that the body to be smelt must be in a gaseous 
condition, just as it is required that before we experience 
a taste, the substance must be dissolved, and for the 
sensation of touch a resisting solid is necessary. Odorous 
gases are such as are readily and energetically acted on 
by oxygen, and the presence of oxygen is therefore a 
necessary condition of smell. Such gases as mix freely 
without uniting with oxygen—as hydrogen and nitrogen 
—are inodorous. In order also to experience the sensa¬ 
tion of smell it is necessary that the odoriferous particles 
impinge with some violence upon the surface of the sensitive 
membrane in the nose which coiresponds with the olfactory 
nerve, therefore, when we wish to experience a strong 
sensation of smell we sniff strongly, and when a disagree¬ 
able odour is to be avoided we hold our breath, and breathe 
out when we think we are beyond its influence. 
Odours, we all know, are divided into two great and 
most easily distinguished classes, the pleasant—which 
usually monopolize the term odours—and the unpleasant, 
to which we give the brief but expressive name stinks. 
The mental phenomena, however, to which the excitement 
of the olfactory organ gives rise, admit of a more detailed 
classification ; and I quote from Professor Bain s work on 
the ‘ Senses and the Intellect ’ the classes into which that 
philosopher arranges the sensations or peculiar states 
