Am.  jour.  Pharm.  \       Early  History  of  P ercolatiou.  21 
January,  19 19.     J  J 
This  memoir  is  illustrated  with  a  cut  of  the  Boullays  percolator, 
the  distinctive  features  of  which  are  the  conical  shaped  bottom  and 
the  two  perforated  diaphragms  on  one  of  which  the  drug  is  to  rest 
while  the  second  is  used  to  prevent  disturbance  of  the  surface  of 
the  drug  on  the  addition  of  menstruum.  The  Boullays  refer  to 
the  fact  that  many  pharmacists  had  already  used  the  apparatus  ot 
the  sugar  refiners  and  also  attended  to  the  remarks  of  Geiger  (see 
below). 
Robiquet19  now  took  notice  of  the  Boullays'  work  being  urged  to 
do  so,  as  he  says,  by  his  friends.  He  now,  for  the  first  time,  makes 
some  pharmaceutical  application  of  the  process.  His  paper  is  a 
curious  document  for  he  appears  to  attach  no  importance  to  the 
honor  for  which  he  contends.  Indeed,  he  speaks  almost  contemptu- 
ously of  the  process,  viz.,  "  I  have  never  attributed  the  least  im- 
portance to  an  affair  which  offers,  after  all,  only  a  puny  application, 
of  the  filter  of  Real."  He  abandons  to  the  Boullays  all  the  priority 
for  their  apparatus,  although  he  claims  to  have  used  the  process  for 
ether  extractions  during  ten  years  and  asserts  that  he  had  had  his 
apparatus  made  in  glass  by  M.  Aloque  who  carried  it  in  stock  after- 
ward and  that  many  pharmacists  had  asked  for  it  under  the  name, 
of  the  "  apparatus  of  Robiquet." 
The  reply  of  P.  F.  G.  Boullay  to  this  paper  was  immediate  and 
satisfactory.20  Boullay  makes  no  pretension  to  any  discovery  of 
any  apparatus  for  percolation,  though  he  had  an  obvious  right  to 
do  so,  but  claims  to  have  newly  applied  the  principle  of  washing  by 
means  of  displacement  to  a  number  of  drugs  and  to  have  demon- 
strated the  uselessness  of  the  column  of  Real.  He  insists,  signifi- 
cantly, upon  the  "  inevitable  revolution  which  pharmacology  will- 
undergo  through  the  general  application  of  the  method  of  displace-, 
ment,"  a  prophecy  which  has  been  amply  fulfilled. 
The  thesis  of  M.  A.  Guillermond21  "  De  l'empoie  de  la  method  de 
deplacement  dans  les  preparations  pharmaceutiques,"  sustained  at 
the  School  of  Pharmacy  of  Paris  presented  a  very  complete  ex- 
amination of  the  process  of  displacement,  comparing  it  with  macera- 
tion to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter  process.  Guillermond  gives  to 
Robiquet  and  Boutron  the  credit  for  having  introduced  the  process 
to  organic  chemistry,  but  gives  the  honor  of  extending  its  applica- 
19  Jour,  de  Pharm.,  vol.  21,  p.  113,  1835. 
20  Jour,  de  Pharm.,  vol.  21,  p.  188,  1835. 
21  Jour,  de  Pharm,,  vol.  21,  p.  349,  1835;  this  Journal,  vol.  10,  p.  308,  1836. 
