SELECTED ARTICLES. 
ART. It. — ON THE PREPARATION OF THE ESSENTIAL OIL 
OF MUSTARD. 
(Bert liner Medizinist Zeitung.) 
The essential oil of mustard, from its active medicinal 
qualities, will soon become a common remedy,and will no doubt 
be introduced into our pharmacopoeia, as it has already been 
into the Hamburg new dispensatory. This oil belongs to that 
class of essential oils which do not pre-exist in the substances 
from which they are obtained, and whose mode of produc- 
tion by the agency of water is not yet satisfactorily explained. 
It is similar in this respect to the essential oil of bitter 
almonds, but diners from it in being unaffected by the oxygen 
of the atmosphere, and in containing sulphur as one of its ele- 
ments. The statements of chemists, with regard to the pre- 
paration of this oil and the quantity obtained, are so various, 
that the author was induced to make some experiments, as to 
the best mode of preparation and the quantity to be obtained 
from a certain amount of black mustard seed. 
Messrs. Bertram and Robiquet, (Journal de Pharmacie, 
Mai, 1831,) obtained from one killogram of powdered mustard, 
half a gross, or according to our weight, nearly thirty grains 
from every pound. M. Dann (Buchner's Register) obtained 
from thirty pounds of mustard seed, eleven drachms, and M. 
Aschoff,(Jour. per Pract. Chem.) from one pound obtained forty- 
two grains. It seems that M. Thibierge, introduced the use of 
this essential oil, but says nothing about the quantity obtained 
from the raw material. 
The result of the author's experiments, prove that the 
method of distillation commonly used for the preparation of 
the essential oils, cannot be advantageously employed for the 
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