24  Early  History  of  Percolation.       { AfJ^ 
with  the  method  for  preparing  an  infusion  of  cinchona  and  did  not 
even  attempt  to  use  it  for  preparing  other  infusions  or  extracts. 
Robiquet  and  Boutron  undoubtedly  were  the  first  to  extract 
drugs  by  a  process  which  is  identical  with  our  present  percolation. 
They  packed  their  material  in  a  true  percolator  and  exhausted  it 
with  successive  portions  of  solvent.  Ether  was  the  solvent  usually 
employed  by  them,  but  Robiquet  stated  that  alcohol  or  water  might 
also  be  used  where  desirable.  The  percolating  apparatu's  of  Robi- 
quet was  used  by  several  Parisian  pharmacists  who,  therefore,  ap- 
preciated the  value  of  the  new  method  of  extraction. 
Robiquet  and  Boutron,  however,  made  no  application  of  this 
new  process  to  the  extraction  of  drugs  for  pharmaceutical  purposes 
and  it  was  not  until  two  years  after  the  publication  of  the  first 
memoir  of  the  Boullays  that  Robiquet  did  offer  a  description  of  its 
use  in  pharmacy.  Indeed,  Robiquet  was  unable  to  conceive  the 
possibilities  of  the  process  and,  as  his  above  quoted  remarks  amply 
show,  considered  percolation  a  trifling  affair  quite  unworthy  of  much 
thought  or  effort. 
The  work  of  the  Boullays,  on  the  contrary,  was  devoted  to  the 
establishment  of  percolation  as  the  method  of  extracting  drugs. 
They  compared  it  with  the  old  process  of  maceration  and  demon- 
strated its  superiority,  which  Cadet,  using  the  Real  apparatus,  was 
unable  to  do.  They  showed  the  uselessness  of  the  long  column 
which  Real  contrived  to  obtain  pressure.  But  the  most  noteworthy 
feature  of  the  Boullay  memoirs  is  their  insistance  upon  the  great 
future  of  the  method  of  displacement,  as  they  termed  it,  and  of  the 
revolution  in  pharmaceutical  practise  which  it  must  bring  about. 
The  Boullays  exhibited  a  pharmaceutical  skill  and  knowledge 
which  neither  Robiquet  nor  Boutron  showed.  Indeed,  the  latter 
were  more  nearly  pure  chemists,  as  was  Vauquelin,  than  pharmacists. 
Lastly  we  have  the  contemporary  opinions  of  Guillermond,  Sou- 
beiran  and  Duhammel,  who  all  accord  to  the  Boullays  the  honor  of 
applying  percolation  to  pharmacy. 
I  have  no  desire  to  depreciate,  in  the  slightest  degree,  the  credit 
which  belongs  to  MM.  Boutron  and  Robiquet  for  having  introduced 
percolation  into  organic  chemistry :  their  work  is  analogous  to  that 
of  Soxhlet  and  does  no  more  pertain  to  pharmacy  than  his ;  but  I 
think  the  evidence  leads  clearly  to  a  single  conclusion  and  that  is 
that  to  the  Boullays,  father  and  son,  belongs  the  honor  of  establish- 
ing the  process  of  percolation  in  the  art  of  pharmacy. 
