A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2). Johann Beckmann

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СКАЧАТЬ loses its transparency. Since writing the above, I find that M. Raspe230 denies this bringing forward of colours by fire.

      SOAP

      That the first express mention of soap occurs in Pliny and Galen, and that the former declares it to be an invention of the Gauls, though he prefers the German to the Gallic soap231, has already been remarked by many. Pliny says that soap232 was made of tallow and ashes; that the best was made of goats’ tallow and the ashes of the beech-tree, and that there were two kinds of it, hard and soft. The author of a work on simple medicines, which is ascribed to Galen, but which however does not seem to have been written by that author, and of which only a Latin translation has been printed, speaks of soap being made by a mixture of oxen, goats’, or sheep’s tallow, and a lye of ashes strengthened with quicklime. He says the German soap was the purest, the fattest, and the best, and that the next in quality was the Gallic233. This account corresponds more exactly with the process used in Germany at present; whereas the French use mineral alkali, and instead of tallow, employ oil, which appears to be a later invention. Pliny in his description does not speak of quicklime; but as he mentions a mixture of goats’ tallow and quicklime a little before, it is probable that the use of the latter was then known at Rome. Gallic and German soap are often mentioned by later writers234, as well as by the Arabians, sometimes on account of their external use as a medicine, and sometimes on account of their use in washing clothes. The latter purpose is that for which soap is principally employed in modern times; but it does not seem to have been the cause of German soap being introduced at Rome. Washing there was the occupation of indigent scourers, who did not give themselves much trouble concerning foreign commodities. The German soap, with which, as Pliny tells us, the Germans coloured their hair red, was imported to Rome for the use of the fashionable Roman ladies and their gallants. There is no doubt that the pilæ Mattiacæ, which Martial recommends as a preventive of gray hair235; the caustica spuma with which the Germans dyed their hair236; and the Batavian froth or lather which the Romans employed for colouring theirs237, were German soap. It is probable that the Germans tinged it with those plants which were sent to Rome for dyeing the hair238; and according to the modern manner of speaking, it was more properly a kind of pomade than soap.

      It appears that the Romans at first considered hair-soap as an ointment made from ashes; for we read in various passages of ancient authors, that the hair was dyed by means of ashes, or an ointment made of ashes and a certain kind of oil. It is however possible that they may have had such an ointment, which undoubtedly would be of a saponaceous nature, before they were acquainted with the German soap, or that they imitated the German pomade with different variations239.

      As soap is everywhere used for washing at present, a question arises what substitutes were employed before it was invented. Those with which I am acquainted I shall mention and endeavour to illustrate. They are all still used, though not in general; and they are all of a soapy nature, or at least have the same effects as soap; so that we may say the ancients used soap without knowing it.

      Our soap is produced by a mixture of lixivious salts and tallow, by which means the latter becomes soluble in water. The greater part of the dirt on our linen and clothes consists of oily perspiration or grease, or dust which that grease attracts, and which either cannot be washed out, or, but very imperfectly, by water alone. But if warm water, to which lixivious salts have in any manner been added, be taken, and if dirty cloth be rubbed in it, the greasy dirt unites with the salts, becomes saponaceous, and is so far soluble in water that it may be washed out. There are also natural juices which are of a soapy quality, in the state in which we find them, and which can be employed in the stead of artificial soap. Of this kind is the gall of animals and the sap of many plants. The former being less strong in its effects on account of its slimy nature, is used at present particularly for coloured stuffs, the dye of which is apt to fade. As far as I know, however, it was not employed by the ancients240, but it is certain that in washing they used saponaceous plants.

      In the remotest periods it appears that clothes were cleaned by being rubbed or stamped upon in water, without the addition of any substance whatever. We are told by Homer, that Nausicaa and her attendants washed their clothes by treading upon them with their feet in pits, into which they had collected water241. The epithet black, which the poet gives to the water, might induce one to conjecture that it had been mixed with ashes, which would convert it into a lye; but where were the ashes to be found? Had they brought them along with them, the bard, where he before enumerates everything that they carried with them, and even oil, would not have failed to mention them; and such a conjecture is rendered entirely groundless by his applying the same epithet to pure water, in other places, where nothing can be supposed to have coloured it242. Water, when it stands in deep pits, reflects so few rays of light, that in a poetical sense it may very properly be called black.

      We find however mention made at later periods of ashes, and a lye of ashes employed for washing; but I think very seldom, and I do not know how old the use of them may be. According to Julius Pollux, konia, mentioned by Aristophanes and Plato, was a substance used for washing; and he says expressly, that we are to understand by it a lye of ashes. This I mention for the sake of those, who, like me, place little confidence in the terms of art given in dictionaries. With the above lye, oil- and wine-jars were cleaned243; and it was employed also for washing the images of the gods244. The method of strengthening the lye by means of unslaked lime was known, at any rate, in the time of Paulus Ægineta; but it appears that the Romans were not acquainted with the salt itself, which is procured by dissolving common wood-ashes in water: I mean, they did not understand the art of producing it in a dry solid form, or of boiling potashes.

      On the other hand, that fixed lixivious salt, the mineral which nature presents in many of the southern countries, was long known and used in washing. This was the nitrum, or, as the people of Attica pronounced it, the litrum, of the ancients, as has already been remarked by others245. It would however be worth the trouble to investigate the proofs still further. By examining them with more mineralogical and chemical knowledge than have hitherto been employed for that purpose, they might be further strengthened, and serve to illustrate many obscure passages. For my part, I have neither leisure nor room here to undertake such a task, though I have collected many observations relative to that subject. It is certain at any rate, that the ancients employed nitrum for washing, and it is evident from the testimony of various authors, that it was much used in the baths246.

      That the people of Egypt, in the time of Pliny, made mineral alkali also from the ashes of some plants, we have reason to conclude, because he says that it was necessary to put the Egyptian nitre into vessels well-corked, else it became liquid. Natural alkali is never liable to do so, unless it be very much burnt; and as no reason is assigned for its assuming that form, we may believe that the Egyptian alkali was the strongly burnt ashes of those plants which are still used in Egypt for making salt, and perhaps the same with which the Spaniards were made acquainted by the Arabians, and which they cultivate for making soda.

      Strabo speaks of an alkaline water in Armenia, which was used by the scourers for washing clothes247. Of this kind also must have been the lake Ascanius, which is mentioned by Aristotle248, СКАЧАТЬ