Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  j 
January,  19 19. 
Early  History  of  Percolation. 
17 
of  pharmaceutical  operations ;  none  of  these  even  remotely  resembles 
percolation,  and  his  work  is  so  exhaustive  that  he  could  hardly  have 
overlooked  it  had  it  been  in  common  use  at  that  time.  His  directions 
for  preparing  extracts  were  maceration  with  subsequent  pressing 
out  of  the  marc. 
The  earliest  recorded  forms  of  apparatus -in  which  percolation 
might  be  carried  out  are  a  sort  of  percolator  used  by  the  sugar 
refiners  in  decolorizing  their  syrups  and  the  cafetiere  of  Dubelloy, 
both  in  common  use  early  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  mentioned 
by  the  Boullays. 
It  was  probably  from  the  cafetiere  of  Dubelloy  that  Benjamin 
Thompson,  Count  of  Rumford — born  at  Woburn,  Mass. — obtained 
the  ideas  which  led  to  his  improved  processes  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  coffee2  in  which  he  utilized  an  apparatus  very  much  like  a 
percolator.  Rumford  himself  states  that  he  did  not  know  who  first 
proposed  the  method.    In  his  own  words,  his  process  was  : 
"  Xow  when  coffee  is  made  in  the  most  advantageous  manner,  the 
ground  coffee  is  pressed  down  in  a  cylindrical  vessel,  which  has  a 
bottom  pierced  with  many  small  holes  so  as  to  form  a  strainer; 
and  a  proper  quantity  of  boiling  water  being  poured  cautiously  on 
this  layer  of  coffee  in  powder,  the  water  penetrates  it  by  degrees, 
and  after  a  certain  time  begins  to  filter  through  it.  This  gradual 
percolation  brings  continually  a  succession  of  fresh  particles  of  pure 
water  into  contact  with  the  ground  coffee,  and  when  the  last  portion 
of  water  has  passed  through  it,  everything  capable  of  being  dis- 
solved by  the  water  will  be  found  to  be  so  completely  washed  out 
of  it,  that  what  remains  will  be  of  no  kind  of  Value." 
It  will  be  noted  that  Rumford  uses  the  term  "  percolation,"  pos- 
sibly the  first  use  of  it  in  this  connection.  We  next  find  it  in 
Duhammel's  memoir3  on  the  process  of  displacement.  Rumford's 
device  is  more  properly  an  apparatus  for  the  preparation  of  in- 
fusions than  a  percolator  and,  except  for  historical  interest,  has  no 
connection  with  the  percolation  of  pharmacy. 
The  "  filter  press  "  invented  by  Count  Real4  and  described  by  C. 
L.  Cadet,  was  an  hexagonal  box  of  tin  to  the  top  of  which  was 
fitted  a  vertical  pipe  or  column,  six  to  eleven  feet  in  height,  to  exert, 
2  Repertory  of  Arts,  Manufactures,  and  Agriculture,  2d  series,  vol.  22,  pp. 
274,  339,  1813. 
3  This  Journal,  vol.  10,  p.  1,  1838. 
4  Jour,  de  Pharm.,  vol.  2,  pp.  165,  468,  1816. 
