ON THE DISTILLATION OF OIL OF CLOVES. 
235 
trine aloes cools, and which is usually termed the resin or the 
resinoid of Socotrine aloes, is the aloin in a modified state. 
3. That hepatic aloes* is the juice of the Socotrine aloes plant 
which has been solified without the aid of artificial heat. 
4. That hepatic aloes owes its opacity to the presence of min- 
ute crystals of aloin. 
5. That the juice of Socotrine aloes yields, when evaporated 
by artificial heat, an extract possessing all the properties of 
commercial Socotrine aloes.- — Pharm. Journ. April, 1852. 
ON THE DISTILLATION OF OIL OF CLOVES AND THE PRE- 
PARATION OF BENZOIC ACID BY MEANS OF SUPER-HEATED 
STEAM. 
By Professor E. A. Scharling. 
The use of super-heated steam has been advantageously applied 
in various branches of manufacture, such as the carbonization of 
wood, the distillation of mercury, the preparation of plaster of 
Paris, &c. There is, however, no use to which it has been more 
successfully applied that to the distillation of palm oil, cocoa-nut 
oil, tallow, and other fatty substances, used in the manufacture of 
Stearic candles, a manufacture which has now become of consider- 
able commercial importance. There can be no reason to doubt 
that the use of super-heated steam may also be advantageously ap- 
plied to the preparation of various Pharmaceutical products. The 
following is an account of some experiments made by Professor 
Scharling on the distillation of oil of cloves : — 
On passing a current of super-heated steam into a metallic 
cylinder half-filled with bruised cloves and pieces of pumice-stone, 
the size of a pea, there were obtained from one pound of Amboyna 
cloves, of first quality, two ounces and a half of oil, together with 
*By the term "hepatic aloes" I mean the opaque liver-colored aloes im- 
ported into England from the East Indies (usually from Bombay.) This 
sort of aloes is very different from the hepatic Bar~badoes aloes, which former- 
ly appears to have been exclusively called " hepatic aloes." 
13* 
