On the physiological and medicinal properties of iodoform / by R. M. Glover, M.D.

  • Robert Mortimer Glover
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the physiological and medicinal properties of iodoform / by R. M. Glover, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    credit of advertising :— Dear Sir,—Your ointment has performed such and such wonders. But Sir John Fife will corroborate me when I say, that the results obtained were very surprising. Since then, I have used iodoform from time to time, both in dispensary and private practice; and some druggists have been in the habit of keeping the remedy prepared for my prescriptions. I have also re- peatedly urged a trial of it upon the physicians and surgeons of our Infirmary, and upon other medical men, but mthout being able to get them to use it. When we consider the constitution of iodoform, Hg I3 ; so that 13 grains of carbon and hydrogen in this body render about 380 grains of iodine, organic; change the iodine from an inorganic into an organic body of the same natiire as an acid secreted by animals, and possessing relations with alcohol and ether (an assimilable sub- stance), we cannot help being struck with the extraordinary chemi- cal composition of the substance, and become desirous of ascertain- ing its physiological and (if any) its medicinal properties. In this paper, I shall first speak of the chemical history of iodo- form, state some facts with, regard to its mode of preparation, and then on what is known of its physiological and medicinal properties. Iodoform was discovered by Serullas, who named it perhydrioduret of carbon; and Mitscherlicli, in examining it, announced the opinion that it contained no hydrogen (Annales de Chemie et de Physique, tom. xxxvii. p. 84). Its true natm'e was demonstrated by Dumas (Ibid. tom. Ivi. p. 113j, who proved that it should be considered as a body analogous to formic acid, where the oxygen is replaced by iodine. Since iodoform was discovered, the mode of its preparation has undergone many changes, and probably remains very imperfect. Serullas first obtained it by the action of potassium on the alloy of antimony, and potassium on the alcoholic tincture of iodine. He then prepared it by the action of chloride of iodine on an alcoholic solution of potass, and he discovered, at last, that it could be ob- tained with facility by mixing, until discoloration, alcohoHc solutions of iodine and potass. It is certain that the union of iodine and potass in the presence of alcohol, causes the formation of iodoform ; but the theory of this formation is still very obscm-e. Mitscherlicli, Bouchardat, and Lie- big, have all given different formulas of the reaction. Bouchai'dat, indeed, in one paper has given two or three (See Recherches sur VIodoform, ^c, par A. Bouchardat, Journal de Pfiannacie, Janvier 1837), admitting, at the same time, that they ai'e not in accordance with actual results. According to Liebig, the following would be the reaction:—C4 H5 O + H O + Is + 6 K O ( C4 He Og Is Kg ) =C2 HI3 + C2 H O3 K O + 5 KI .-h 4 H 0(0^ He Os Is Kg-) But this formula cannot be wholly correct, because formic acid, fornnc ether, and iodate of potass, are formed in the process. Of course this formula would give 1 atom of alcohol, 8 of iodine, and G of potass, equal to, in tlic decomposition, 1 atom of periodide of for-
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