TRANSPARENT SOFT SOAP.

Solution caustic potash (Lond.  Ph.), 6 lbs. 
Olive oil, 1 lb.

Perfume to taste.

Before commencing to make the soap, reduce the potash lye to one half its bulk by continued boiling.  Now proceed as for the manufacture of saponaceous cream.  After standing a few days, pour off the waste liquor.

TRANSPARENT HARD SOAP.

Reduce the soap to shavings, and dry them as much as possible, then dissolve in alcohol, using as little spirit as will effect the solution, then color and perfume as desired, and cast the product in appropriate moulds; finally dry in a warm situation.

Until the Legislature allows spirit to be used for manufacturing purposes, free of duty, we cannot compete with our neighbors in this article.

JUNIPER TAR SOAP.

This soap is made from the tar of the wood of the Juniperus communis, by dissolving it in a fixed vegetable oil, such as almond or olive oil, or in fine tallow, and forming a soap by means of a weak soda lye, after the customary manner.  This yields a moderately firm and clear soap, which may be readily used by application to parts affected with eruptions at night, mixed with a little water, and carefully washed off the following morning.  This soap has lately been much used for eruptive disorders, particularly on the Continent, and with varying degrees of success.  It is thought that the efficient element in its composition is a rather less impure hydrocarburet than that known in Paris under the name huile de cade.  On account of its ready miscibility with water, it possesses great advantage over the common tar ointment.

MEDICATED SOAPS.

Six years ago I began making a series of medicated soaps, such as SULPHUR SOAP, IODINE SOAP, BROMINE SOAP, CREOSOTE SOAP, MERCURIAL SOAP, CROTON OIL SOAP, and many others.  These soaps are prepared by adding the medicant to curd soap, and then making in a tablet form for use.  For sulphur soap, the curd soap may be melted, and flowers of sulphur added while the soap is in a soft condition.  For antimony soap and mercurial soap, the low oxides of the metals employed may also be mixed in the curd soap in a melted state.  Iodine, bromine, creosote soap, and others containing very volatile substances, are best prepared cold by shaving up the curd soap in a mortar, and mixing the medicant with it by long beating.

In certain cutaneous diseases the author has reason to believe that they will prove of infinite service as auxiliaries to the general treatment.  It is obvious that the absorbent vessels of the skin are very active during the lavoratory process; such soap must not, therefore, be used except by the special advice of a medical man.  Probably these soaps will be found useful for internal application.  The precedent of the use of Castile soap (containing oxide of iron) renders it likely that when prejudice has passed away, such soaps will find a place in the pharmacopoeias.  The discovery of the solubility, under certain conditions, of the active alkaloids, quinine, morphia, &c., in oil, by Mr. W. Bastick, greatly favors the supposition of analogous compounds in soap.