Dissertation third : exhibiting a general view of the progress of chemical philosophy, from the early ages to the end of the eighteenth century / by William Thomas Brande.

  • Brande, William Thomas, 1788-1866.
Date:
1818
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dissertation third : exhibiting a general view of the progress of chemical philosophy, from the early ages to the end of the eighteenth century / by William Thomas Brande. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    substance which thus exists in bittern, is a compound of magnesia and sulphurick acid. It was first obtained from certain mineral springs in the neighbourhood of Epsom in Surry, and thence called Epsom salt, but was sold at a very high price, in consequence of the small quantities so pro- cured, until the manufacturers in the neighbourhood of Lymington obtained it from sea water; it was then largely exported to the Continent under the name of English salt. Epsom salt was indeed long confounded with Gi.uiber'a salt, and a fraud of the manufacturers here, and in Germa- ny, tended to keep up the confusion ; for at that period Glauber's salt was rare in England, and large crystals of Epsom salt were sold under that name ; but in Germany, where Epsom salt was not common, Glauber's salt, in small crystals, was vended as English or Epsom salt. Pott of Berlin, and Du Hamel of Paris, were led into a comedy of errours in consequence of mistaking the nature of these bodies. Dr. Black found that, when magnesia was prepared by precipitating a solution of Epsom salt by a mild alkali, that it effervesced with acids; but that when heated to redness, it lost weight, and (hen dissolved without effer- vescence. This fact, which also holds good in respect to lime, induced him to believe that, instead of gaining any Hoffman was the most celebrated Chemical Physician of the age. He was born at Halle in Saxony, in 1660, and died in 1742. His writings, which are voluminous, are also valuable. Io 1749, they were eked out by the Genevese Booksellers into nine folio volumes. The following are his leading Essays in Chemistry : Dissertationes de Generationc Salium,—De Natura Nitri,—De Cinnabare Antimonii,—De Mirabili Sulphuris Antimonii jixali cjficacia,—De Mcrcurio et Medicamentis Mercurialibus. Obser- vationum Physico-Chemicarmn Collcctio. Libri iii.