Schimmel & Co. was a German essential-oil and perfumery chemical factory at Miltitz near Leipzig, founded in 1829 by the apothecary Carl Emil Schimmel, that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the world’s largest essential-oil house. The firm was a regular consultant of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum at Amsterdam in the evaluation of Netherlands Indies essential-oil samples — including the Atjeh patchouli-oil samples sent from Tapa-Toean in 1921 and the Bakongan leaf samples sent in 1924 — and its analytical reports are preserved in *Bericht* No. 21 of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum (April 1925).
The Firm
Schimmel & Co. was founded at Miltitz, a village west of Leipzig, in 1829 by the apothecary Carl Emil Schimmel. The firm began as a small essential-oil distillery and grew over the nineteenth century into one of the largest essential-oil and perfumery-chemical businesses in Europe. By the turn of the twentieth century Schimmel & Co. was the world’s largest essential-oil house, with extensive plantations of essential-oil plants in the colonies and a world-wide trade in distilled oils, aromatic chemicals and perfumery raw materials.
The firm’s scientific reputation rested on its Mitteilungen (Communications), a serial publication of essential-oil analyses and technical notes that was the indispensable reference work of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century essential-oil trade. The standard reference work Gildemeister und Hoffmann, Die ätherischen Öle (The Ethereal Oils), cited as the principal botanical-chemical authority by the Laboratorium voor Technische Botanie at Delft in its 1924 report on Atjeh patchouli leaf, was a publication closely associated with the Schimmel house.
The Atjeh Patchouli Consultations
The Afdeeling Handelsmuseum at Amsterdam, in its evaluation of Netherlands Indies essential-oil samples, regularly consulted Schimmel & Co. of Miltitz alongside the French house of Roure, Bertrand fils of Grasse and the Dutch house of Polak & Schwarz’s Essencefabrieken of Hilversum. The Miltitz house was thus one of the three principal European expert houses whose verdicts on Atjeh patchouli oil are recorded in the 1925 Bericht of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum.
The December 1921 Verdict
Schimmel & Co.’s first verdict on the Atjeh patchouli oil, dated December 1921, was signed by the analytical chemist Dr. Richard Dunkel. Two distillation fractions had been sent: a first-distillate from the first two hours of distilling, and a second-distillate from the next two hours. The Schimmel report gave the following constants:
| Constant | Oil I (first 2 hrs) | Oil II (second 2 hrs) |
|---|---|---|
| Specific gravity (15°) | 0.9391 | 0.9801 |
| Optical rotation (100 mm tube) | +1°… | -1°… |
| Refractive index (20°) | 1.50689 | 1.50956 |
| Acid value | 0.6 | 0.6 |
| Ester value | 1.9 | 2.6 |
| Solubility in 90% alcohol | not fully soluble in 10 vol. | soluble in ca. 7 vol., with turbidity |
Schimmel’s verdict was not encouraging. Oil I had “abweichende Konstanten” (deviating constants) and failed in odour, “der viel zu schwach ist” (which is much too weak). The explanation, Schimmel observed, was that this was not a normal distillate but “ein vorzugsweise die leichter flüchtigen Anteile enthaltendes Destillat” — a distillate containing predominantly the more volatile components.
Oil II, while no complete distillate, showed “in Eigenschaften und Geruch leidliche Uebereinstimmung mit den Singapore-Patchouliölen” (in properties and odour tolerable agreement with the Singapore patchouli oils) and might “unter Umständen für den Handel in Frage kommen” (under circumstances come into question for trade). But the final verdict was: “ein vollwertiges Konkurrenzprodukt für das Singaporeöl ist aber auch dieses Destillat nicht” — a full-value competitive product for the Singapore oil this distillate is not.
The 1924 Verdict on Bakongan Leaf
In the winter of 1924-1925 the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum sent a sample of the Bakongan patchouli leaf — Van Vreeswijk’s “neusje van den zalm” (the very best) of Atjeh patchouli — to Schimmel & Co. for distillation and evaluation. Schimmel distilled the leaf with water steam and reported on 21 April 1925 (as the closing expert report of the 1925 Bericht):
“Die uns übersandten Dilemblätter lieferten bei der Destillation mit Wasserdampf 3,6% Oel von folgenden Eigenschaften:” — The Dilem leaves sent to us yielded on distillation with water steam 3.6% of oil with the following properties:
| Constant | Value |
|---|---|
| Colour | light brown |
| Odour | strong patchouli odour (kräftiger Patchouligeruch) |
| Specific gravity (15°) | 0.9830 |
| Optical rotation (100 mm tube) | -62°5’ |
| Refractive index (20°) | 1.51130 |
| Solubility in 90% alcohol | soluble in 0.3 vol. and more |
| Acid value | 0.4 |
| Ester value | 5.6 |
Schimmel’s final verdict on the Bakongan leaf was decisive:
“Die untersuchten Dilemblätter sind hiernach den Singapore-Patchouliblättern als gleichwertig zu erachten. Die Oelausbeute ist recht befriedigend und das Oel selbst nach Geruch und Konstanten von guter Qualität.” — The examined Dilem leaves are accordingly to be considered equivalent to the Singapore patchouli leaves. The oil yield is quite satisfactory and the oil itself, in odour and constants, is of good quality.
This judgement — coming from the world’s largest essential-oil house, and expressed in the same German scientific idiom as the firm’s Mitteilungen — was the decisive external endorsement of the indigenous Atjeh patchouli-oil industry.
Significance
Schimmel & Co. is significant for the encyclopedia of Aceh history as one of the three principal European expert houses whose analytical reports, preserved in the 1925 Bericht of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum, documented the four-year experimental programme (1921-1925) that founded the indigenous Atjeh patchouli-oil industry. The firm’s verdicts — first unfavourable in 1921, then decisively favourable on the Bakongan leaf in 1925 — frame the trajectory of the experimental programme. The Miltitz house exemplifies the type of the metropolitan European essential-oil firm whose scientific judgement, in the colonial industrial-research methodology of the period, was the indispensable arbiter of the commercial viability of colonial raw-material experiments.
See Also
- Atjeh patchouli experiments (1921-1925)
- Over patchouly-olie en patchouly-blad van Atjeh (1925)
- Atjehsche Oliefabriek
- Tapa Toean
- Bakongan
- Van Vreeswijk
- Roure, Bertrand fils
- Polak & Schwarz’s Essencefabrieken
- Laboratorium voor Technische Botanie (Delft)
- Afdeeling Handelsmuseum
- Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut
- Leipzig
- Germany
- Singapore
- 1921
- 1925
Source
Over patchouly-olie en patchouly-blad van Atjeh (Noord-Sumatra). Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut, No. 21. Overgedrukt uit De Indische Mercuur van 8 en 15 Mei 1925. Amsterdam: Druk De Bussy. OCR-filename: 20260801_233856_DLP-153-Over_patchouly_olie_en_patchouly_blad_van_Atjeh_Noord_Sumatra_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 4-7 (December 1921 report by Dr. Richard Dunkel) and pp. 19-20 (April 1925 report on Bakongan leaf).