Chemistry : general, medical and pharmaceutical :including the chemistry of the British Pharmacopoeia : a manual on the general principles of the science, and their applications in medicine and pharmacy / by John Attfield.

  • Attfield, John, 1835-1911.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemistry : general, medical and pharmaceutical :including the chemistry of the British Pharmacopoeia : a manual on the general principles of the science, and their applications in medicine and pharmacy / by John Attfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    71/930 (page 43)
    The foregoing aggregation of symbols or shorthand charac- ters, or formula, H20, is, then, a convenient picture of the facts that have already come before us, viz., that water is formed of the elements hydrogen; H, and oxygen, 0 ; more- over, that it is formed of two measures or volumes of hydro- gen, EL,, to one of oxygen, 0 ; and, thirdly, that the mole- cule of water (H20) is formed of two atoms of hydrogen (H2) and one of oxygen (0). The formula also fulfils the fourth function of indicating that the two volumes of hydrogen and one of oxygen in combining condensed to two volumes of steam. That the resulting bulk of steam after- wards shrunk most considerably in condensing to water, is another matter altogether, a physical and not a chemical result, and due to the approximation of the molecules of water after formation. Another experiment already performed, illustrating the character of the manifestations of chemical force (symboli- cally noted as follows), was that in which the red-hot carbon of wood was plunged into oxygen. The evidence of chemi- cal action in that case was the sudden inflammation of the carbonaceous extremity of the wood. The particles of car- bon and oxygen having intense attraction or affinity for each other at that temperature, rushed together so impetuously as suddenly to produce a large additional quantity of heat, an amount sufficient to cause the particles to emit an intense white light. The action is expressed on paper in either of the following ways :—C2 + 202 = 2C02 ; or, C02 is the formula of the well-known gaseous body com- monly termed carbonic acid gas