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Which essential oils had reached European pharmacies by about 1500?
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Essential oil
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By about 1500, the isolation of essential oils through distillation had become a specialty of European medieval pharmacies. At that time, the following essential oils had been introduced into these pharmacies:
These substances were highly valued for their perceived essence of odor and flavor, and their availability in pharmacies was significantly influenced by the development of distillation techniques during the Middle Ages, which allowed for the extraction of these oils using ethyl alcohol as a solvent.1