Ajanu°ary,  19?™" }       Earb  History  of  Percolation.  23 
Soubeiran,25  in  1836,  published  the  results  of  his  researches  on 
the  method  of  displacement,  having  experimented  on  sixty  drugs. 
He  considered  the  apparatus  of  the  Boullays  the  best.  Although, 
like  Guillermond  and  others,  he  accepts  Vauquelin's  experiment  of 
washing  brine  out  of  sand  with  fresh  water  as  a  proof  of  displace- 
ment, he  shows  that  water  will  not  displace  alcohol  from  a  drug 
without  mixing  with  it,  in  this  controverting  the  Boullays.  As  to 
the  question  of  priority  he  has  this  to  say : 
"  Lixiviation  was  not  applied  to  pharmaceutic  preparations,  or 
rather  this  application  was  almost  forgotten  when  MM.  Boullay 
pointed  out  the  advantages  of  it.  .  .  .  It  is  true  M.  Pay  en  had  ad- 
vised this  process,  and  M.  Robiquet  had'  employed  it  in  certain 
chemical  investigations,  but  its  real  application  to  pharmaceutic 
preparations  appears  to  be  owing  to  MM.  Boullay." 
The  memoirs  of  Guillermond  and  Soubeiran  were  published  in 
this  Journal  soon  after  their  appearance  in  the  French  periodicals. 
Elias  Durand  of  Philadelphia  immediately  adopted  the  process  and 
was  probably  the  first  American  pharmacist  to  employ  it.  Au- 
gustine Duhammel,  in  1838,  wrote  the  first  American  memoir  on 
the  process  and  from  that  time  on,  American  pharmacists  have  led 
the  world  in  studying  and  applying  percolation. 
This,  then,  is  the  evidence  upon  which  we  must  base  our  con- 
clusions as  to  whom  is  due  the  honor  of  being  the  "  Father  of  Per- 
colation.'' Dubelloy  and  Count  Rumford  may  be  eliminated  for, 
although  their  processes  were  very  similar  to  percolation,  they  were 
intended  only  for  the  preparation  of  an  infusion  of  coffee  as  a 
beverage  and  were  not  extended  to  pharmacy  at  all.  The  process  of 
the  sugar  refiners  may  be  disregarded  for  it  was  not  an  extraction 
process  as  we  understand  percolation :  the  solution  was  percolated 
through  a  decolorizing  mixture  to  which  it  yielded  a  substance  rather 
than  that  a  solvent  was  passed  through  a  mixture  from  which  it 
dissolved  soluble  material.  Real's  filter  press  method,  again,  was 
not  percolation :  it  attempted  no  exhaustion  of  the  drug  but  merely 
to  substitute  a  displacement  for  the  previouly  used  tincture  press. 
Real's  principle  was,  thus,  entirely  different  from  those  which 
govern  percolation. 
Had  Johnson  continued  his  work  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would 
have  discovered  the  process  of  percolation.    As  it  was,  he  stopped 
25  Bui.  Gen.  de  Thcrapie ;  this  Journal,  vol.  10,  p.  221,  1836. 
