Am.  Jour.  Pharni.  \ 
January,  1910.  j 
Maceration  and  Percolation. 
37 
In  1816  the  French  Count  Real  invented  a  hydrostatic  extrac- 
tion press  or  pressure  percolator  in  which  the  drug  is  held  in  place 
by  perforated  disks  and  the  solvent,  contained  in  a  tube  twelve  feet 
high,  is  forced  through  by  its  own  pressure.  Real's  process  and 
apparatus  are  described  in  Annalen  der  Pharmacie,  vol.  xv,  p.  80, 
also  in  Buchner's  Repertorinm  and  in  Soubeiran's  Traite  de  Phar- 
macie, the  German  translation  by  Schoedler  which  I  have  here  for 
your  inspection  devoting  seven  pages  (pp.  123-129)  to  this  subject. 
On  pages  127  and  128  the  fineness  of  the  powder  and  the  method 
of  packing  are  described  by  Soubeiran  and  the  German  pharmacist 
Geiger.  Philip  Lorenz  Geiger,  the  discoverer  of  a  number  of  alka- 
loids, as  coniine,  atropine,  hyoscyamine,  aconitine,  and  colchicine, 
also  wrote  a  little  book,  Real's  Aufioesungspresse,  Heidelberg,  181 7. 
A  very  important  point  in  Real's  process  is  that  he  recommended 
to  macerate  the  ground  drug  with  50  per  cent,  menstruum  for 
several  hours  before  packing  it  in  the  apparatus.  No  doubt  the 
Real  process  smoothed  the  way  for  the  coming  percolation  method. 
In  1834  the  French  pharmacist  Theophile  Jules  Pelouze  em- 
ployed the  process  of  displacement  in  his  laboratory  by  extracting 
nutgalls  in  the  preparation  of  tannic  acid. 
In  1835  the  French  pharmacist  Boullay  and  son  (the  father  dis- 
covered picrotoxin  in  18 18)  published  in  the  Journal  de  Pharmacie, 
vol.  21,  pp.  1-22,  their  paper:  "Considerations  nouvelles  sur  la 
methode  de  deplacement," 5  giving  the  experience  of  Soubeiran, 
Limonin,  Boudet,  Buchner,  Dublanc,  Pelletier,  and  Pelouze.  In  the 
same  journal,  p.  113,  Robiguet  criticizes  Boullay's  claims  to  priority, 
having  used  the  methode  de  deplacement  for  five  to  six  years  in 
his  laboratory  and  factory.  I  beg  to  point  out  that  in  Boullay's 
method  the  drug  was  put  dry  into  the  apparatus. 
Dr.  Fr.  Schoedler,  the  translator  of  Soubeiran's  Traite  de 
Pharmacie,  states,  p.  115:  "The  science  of  pharmacy  has  not  been 
enriched  through  the  much  praised  methode  de  deplacement  of  M. 
Boullay  nor  through  the  experiments  of  Guillermond.  The  princi- 
ple and  application  of  their  method  are  the  same  as  the  Real  process, 
which  has  been  in  use  over  twenty  years." 
An  abstract  of  the  paper  of  M.  A.  Guillermond  was  reported 
as  early  as  1836  in  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  vol.  vii, 
p.  308,  and  I  am  glad  to  state  that  this  Journal  of  the  Philadelphia 
College  of  Pharmacy  has  been  the  recipient  of  the  largest  portion 
of  the  literature  on  percolation  ever  since. 
