US276376A - Charles j - Google Patents

Description

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES J. EVERETT, OF TENAFLY, NEW JERSEY.

SOAP.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 276,376, dated April 24, 1883.

' Application filed October 6, 1876.

To all whom it may concern:

Beitknown thatLCHAaLEsJ. EVERETT, of Tenafly, in the county of Bergen and State of New Jersey, have invented an Improvement in Soaps; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

My invention has for its object the introduction into and incorporation with soaps of a healing, soothing, and emollient substance, which, while imparting valuable medicinal properties to the soap, shall at the same time improve its physical qualities by increasing its lathering-power and neutralizing the last remains of caustic alkali remaining in such soap after the process technically known as separation has been performed, thus rendering soap otherwise harsh and irritating neutral and harmless to the most delicate healthy skin, and positively beneficial and healing to diseased skin, and alleviating to the pain resulting from chapped and cracked hands, skin affected by salt-rheum, open ulcers, 86C.

l My invention consists in the introduction into and incorporation with soaps of the more or less diluted essential oil, the alcoholic tinctures, the crude distillate, aqueous extracts, or concentrated juices of the leaves, bark, or fruit of the American shrub commonly known as witch-hazel, the botanical nameof which is Hamamelz's Virgin Zea. The remedial virtues of this shrub are now thoroughly recognized both by old and new schools of medicine, and the incorporation of these principles in any form in which they can be extracted from the plant into soaps intended for the toilet produces an article of superior quality. A prominent characteristic of the medical application of hamamelis extracts is the promptness of their action in their astringent and sedative functions, and this greatly enhances their usefulness as ingredients of a medicated soap over substances which, though containing useful properties, are too slow in their action to act effectively during the time of application usually employed in ablution.

In the fabrication of my improved soap I employ the alcoholic tincture, the concentrated aqueous decoction, the more or less diluted essential oil, the cold infusion or more or less concentrated expressed juices .of the leaves, bark, or fruit of the witch-hazel, either one or the mixture of some or all these preparations, in accordance with the medical quality and application of the soap I desire to produce; but introduced into soap, either singly or mixed, these extracts produce important changes in the quality of the article. Witch-hazel contains a large amount of tannic acid, and this acid combines with the caustic soda remaining in the soap to form a salt, in itself a solvent of irritating substances which get into-cracks and raw places in the skin, and upon which the unmixed soap exerts no solvent power. The soap is thus not only rendered chemically neutral, but its detergent action is increased. The lathering qualityis, moreover, much improved.

By the use of witch hazel extracts .I am thus enabled to introduce an astringent which improves the soap, whereas the employment of any mineral astringent would render the soap more or less insoluble.

In the use of an alcoholic tincture during the process'of distilling off the alcohol, if care be taken not to raise the temperature above the boiling-point of water, a transparent soap is produced which retains permanently the medical qualities of the drug. In another manner of incorporating the virtues of the drug, the leaves, bark, or fruit may be boiled with the soap during the process of manufacture. In still another mode, the various extracts may be mechanically mixed with the still fluid soap after boiling; or they may he introduced with the lye in the manufacture of what is known as cold soap. In any case the-soap must not be heated above the boilingpoint of water after the extracts are addethas some of the valuable properties of said extracts distill away above that temperature.

I use the various extracts in about the following proportions, preinising, however, that the medical properties of the witch-hazel bark,

fruit, leaves, and flowers vary in quantity so much in different months and seasons that these proportions cannot be exactly followed with uniformity of results: The watery decoction is of a dark oofteejcolor, and contains con- IOO siderable tannin. The alcoholic tincture contains less tannin, and differs in other characteristics from either a decoction or infusion. The essential oil, or the crude distillate, differs greatly from either the aqueous or alcoholic extracts, and contains neither tannic acid nor resinous matter. I take of the crude distillate eight (8) fluid ounces, or of alcoholic tincture four (4) fluid ounces, or of the decoction from four (4) to six (6) fluid ounces, or of the cold infusion one pound for every pound of soap weighed previous to the introduction of the drug. I take of leaves and bark, one pound of leaves and two (2) pounds of bark for every pound of the ordinary soap which should result from the ordinary process of manufacture, and introduce them into the fluid soap. A short heating' extracts their virtues, and the exhausted leaves and bark are removed previous to the solidification of the soap. The essential oil is introduced in the form of a crude weave distillate. The surplus Water introduced with the extract is subsequently carefully evaporated from porcelain to avoid discoloration, and the'medicated soap is then finished.

A marked feature of the soap produced in the manner described is, that the addition of the hainamelis in the forms described decreases the specific gravity of said soap, and in cases-