Under the name of naphtha and other designations petroleum has been
known and used from the earliest times. The Persians were the first,
as far as is known, to employ it for lighting, and also for cooking.
They likewise made use of it as a liniment for rheumatism. So in this
country, a kind of petroleum was sold as a liniment under the name of
British oil; and in America, long before the great oil industry had
been thought of, petroleum was popular as a liniment for rheumatism
under the name of Seneca Oil.
Asphalt, or Bitumen of Judæa, was used by the Egyptians for embalming.
Probably they reduced its solidity by naphtha. Naphtha was employed
by Medea to render the robe which she presented to her rival Glauca
inflammable, and this legend is given to account for the name of Oil
of Medea, by which petroleum was anciently known. It was no doubt the
principal ingredient in the Greek Fire of the middle ages.
Petroleum has been called by many other names. Oil of Peter or Petre
was a common one, meaning, like petroleum, simply rock oil. Myrepsus,
in the thirteenth century, refers to it as Allicola. The monks called
it sometimes oil of St. Barbarus, and oil of St. Catherine.
Dioscorides said naphtha was useful as an application in dimness of
sight. Two centuries ago it was occasionally given in doses of a few
drops for worms, and was frequently applied in toothache. Petroleum
Barbadense, Barbadoes tar, had some reputation in pectoral complaints
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was admitted into the
P.L. as the menstruum for sulphur in the balsamum sulphuris Barbadense.