[Footnote: From the _American Druggist_.]
E. Joerss has investigated the question whether ointments made with
vaseline or other petroleum ointments are really as difficult of
resorption by the skin, or of yielding their medicinal ingredients to
the latter, as has been asserted. In solving this question, he
considered himself justified in drawing conclusions from the manner in
which such compounds behaved toward _dead_ animal membrane. If any kind
of osmosis could take place, he argued, from ointments prepared with
vaseline, etc., through dead membranes, such osmosis would most probably
also take place through living membranes. At all events, the endosmotic
or exosmotic action of the skin of a living body must necessarily play
an important _role_ in the absorption of medicinal agents; and, on the
other hand, it is plain that fats, which render the living skin
impermeable, necessarily also diminish or entirely neutralize its
osmotic action. To test this, the author made the following experiments:
Bladder was tied over the necks of three wide-mouthed vials, with
bottoms cut off, and each was filled with iodide of potassium ointment.
No. 1 contained an ointment made with lard.