INQUIRY INTO ORIGIN OF LITERATURE OF PERFUMERY 199 perfumes, the odor of animals, odor and taste, and other aspects of the subject that are of interest to this day. Aside from the essay of Theo- phrastus, few and quite incidental ref- erences to perfumes are found in the Greek literature, particularly in the works of Hippocrates and Dioscor- ides, who were concerned with the therapeutic value of aromatics. This early link to medicine in the literature of perfumery should not be overlooked. tn the Roman era, when perfumes were used with such abandon by the wealthier classes, and trading in essential oils was an important as- pect of commerce, one finds the subject treated only in passing references in such works as the historical writings of Herodotus, the Satires of Horace, and as part of the subject of cosmetics and adornment in the passionate poetry of Ovid and in greater detail in Pliny's "Natural History," where there are abundant descriptions of the flowers utilized in perfumery and the processes for the extraction of the oils. With the decline of the Roman empire, the center of learning for many years was the world of the Arabs, whose influence extended from the Iberian peninsula' to Asia Minor. The medical literature of this Arabic civilization frequently advises the use of perfumes as therapeutic agents. This classic medical, or to be more exact, pharmacopceial literature, con- tained sections on the methods of extracting essentia:l oils, and gave instructions for blending. Among the illustrious authors of this pe- riod, we may mention Geber and Mesui. However, there seems to be but one book extant, said to come from this period of civilization, which had as its sole aim the study of human embellishment. The work is attrib- uted to Abdeker, alleged to have been the personal physician to Mohammed II, who lived in the mid-fifteenth century it was later incorporated into a book, published at approximately the same time in England and France, and known in English as "The Art of Preserving Beauty'.' (London, •754) this book symbolizes the essential unity of the fields of cosmetics and medicine, a unity that was not to be severed un- til the later years of the Renaissance. In placing Abdeker at this point in our chronology, we would not like this to be interpreted as an endorse- ment of the story that the book was translated from a fifteenth century Arabic manuscript, for there is some evidence that it was actually created in the eighteenth century. Inci- dentally, Abdeker's beauty advice is told in the form of a love story, and at the end the hero and heroine are married, and note how the author tells us that they lived happily ever after: "...their Mar- riage was solemnized, and... they en- joy'd all the Satisfaction and Pleas- ure which Beauty and Virtue join'd with Wit and Good-nature could afford." The great landmark in the history

200 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS of any literature is frequently the invention of movable type by Gutenberg in the mid-years of the fifteenth century which led to the revival of learning and the large- scale development of writing and publishing. It was during these years that the forerunners of the first perfumery books were written. Figure 1.--Title page of book divulging secrets of the perfumer's art, published in Venice in 1560. (Collection, U.S. Army Medical Library.) Some of this sixteenth century literature which we shall cite is concerned more with cosmetics than with perfumery others divulged many noble and valuable secrets, of medicine, cosmetics, perfumery, and alchemy. The earliest printed book related exclusively to perfumery which we have located was dated •56o, an anonymous publication bearing the title: "Notandissimi Secreti de l'ArteProfumatoria.' A copy,prob- ably the only one in America, is to be found in the Army Medical Library in Washington. Bibliog- raphers mention another work, likewise anonymous, which bears the almost identical title, "Secreti dell'Arte Profumatoria," and dated the following year Were these two different editions of the same book? At this stage of our investi- gation, we do not know, as we have been unable to locate' the second book. At any rate, the book, im- portant as a landmark of the inde- pendence of perfumery from related arts, appeared during a period that was rich in the early literature of cosmetics. Among these early books, one of the best known is "The Secrets of the Signora Isabella Cortese" (I Secreti de la Signora Isabella Cor- tese, etc.), which deserves special attention because it is one of the few of the so-called books of secrets about everything under the sun that specifically lists perfumery on the title page. This work first appeared in •56• was frequently copied,/•mulated, quoted, and cited' as authoritative for years to come. The earliest copy we have been able to locate in the United States is dated x565. The title page shown here is from the x574 edition, in the private collection of Miss Florence E. Wall, who believes the Cortese