Am':iay?i907arm'}        History  of  Soap  in  Pharmacy,  213 
The  first  authentic  mention  of  soap  is  found  in  the  works  of  Pliny 
the  Elder,  who  speaks  in  a  scientific  way  of  a  remedy  for  tumors 
made  from  ashes  and  oil.  At  another  place  he  describes  a  process 
for  the  preparation  of  soap,  differing  but  little  from  that  pursued  at 
the  present  day,  and  ascribes  its  invention  to  the  Gauls,  who  made 
it  from  tallow  and  beechwood  ashes,  and  used  it  to  make  their  hair 
blond.  He  also  makes  mention  of  a  hard  and  a  soft  soap.  The 
remnants  of  a  fairly  well  equipped  soap  factory  have  been  unearthed 
in  Pompeii,  containing  pieces  of  soap  in  perfect  condition,  although 
more  than  seventeen  hundred  years  old.  As  Pliny  died  in  97  A.D. 
at  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  a  victim  of  his  desire  to  study  the  phe- 
nomenon more  closely,  we  may  infer  that  soap  was  used  by  the 
Romans  in  the  last  two  or  three  centuries  before  Christ.  From  this 
early  time  but  little  progress,  if  any  at  all,  was  made  in  its  prepara- 
tion. The  Middle  Ages  with  their  discouragement  of  original  thought 
were  not  productive  of  new  inventions,  and  we  at  once  pass  to  the 
first  part  of  the  last  century  when  a  new  impulse  was  given  to  soap 
manufacture  by  the  investigations  of  Chevreul.  After  this  scientist 
had  determined  the  chemical  properties  of  soap  and  shown  that  it 
was  the  salt  of  an  alkali  and  a  fatty  acid,  industrial  enterprise  seized 
this  article  and  soon  brought  it  to  its  present  form  of  perfection. 
Pharmacy  and  medicine  paid  but  little  attention  to  these  alkaline 
soaps,  although  in  all  pharmacopoeias  of  the  last  century  hard  and 
soft  soaps  are  mentioned,  and  methods  for  their  preparation  given. 
The  Materia  Medica  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical  College  in  1808 
speaks  of  Sapo,  soap,  prepared  with  oil  of  olive  and  soda,  called 
Castile  soap.  The  first  American  Pharmacopoeia  mentions  simply  : 
Sapo,  Castile  soap,  or  Sapo  hispanicus.  A  later  edition  in  1 831 
speaks  of  Sapo,  soap,  soap  prepared  from  soda  and  olive  oil,  and  of 
Sapo  vulgaris,  common  soap,  prepared  from  soda  and  animal  oil. 
Not  till  1880  is  soft  soap  official  in  our  Pharmacopoeia,  which, 
besides  olive-oil  soap,  speaks  of  Sapo  viridis,  green  soap,  soap 
prepared  from  potash  and  fixed  oils,  and  describes  it  "as  a  soft, 
greenish-yellow,  unctuous  jelly." 
In  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  hard  and  soft  soaps  are  both  official 
as  early  as  181 8,  where  we  read  of : 
Sapo  durus — soap  from  soda  and  olive  oil,  and 
Sapo  mollis — soap  from  potash  and  various  oils. 
