For Cool Nerves MENTHOL penetrates the skin or the mucous mem- For some years, an acceptable partially synthetic brane to stimulate the coolness nerves. Perhaps it in- menthol was made by chemical modification of citroncreases the sensitivity of the coolness nerves to cold, ella oil. With the fall of the Dutch East Indies, citronfor menthol in the mouth does not produce the sensa- ella importation ceased. At present, American manution of coolness until cool air is breathed which seems facturers are using native peppermint oil, which runs to fill the mouth with ice. Most of the cool feel of some about 50 per cent menthol, to eke out the small stock shaving creams, lotions, and tooth pastes, as well as of of natural menthol on hand, which has increased in peppermint candy, is due to menthol. Until recently, value from four dollars to over thirteen per pound. It nearly all of the 250 tons of menthol used each year in is now proposed to make menthol from thymol, which, this country was imported, initially from Japan, but in turn, is made from coal-tar creosote, thus supplethen increasingly from China. In both countries i t menting the production of crops of high-menthol was made from a Japanese type of peppermint oil, an peppermint being raised this year and preventing any oil with an unattractive hay-like odor, but with about serious shortage of this valuable oil. 65 per cent content of menthol, easily crystallized out —Industrial Bulletin of Aurthur D. Little, Inc. on chilling the oil. 130
