Supplement to the Edinburgh new dispensatory / by Andrew Duncan.

Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplement to the Edinburgh new dispensatory / by Andrew Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    pending the operation, the necks of both retorts. The crystals were white or colourless, acicular, shooting from those first formed at an acute angle, (33 ?) very much resembling the crystals of ice seen upon the inside of bed-room windows in severe frost. Upon the contact of water, a brisk effervescence of nitric oxide took place, with the formation of red fumes of nitrous acid, which was thus ready to combine with a fresh quantity of sulphurous acid, and to impart to it an additional proportion of oxygen, on the nitro-sulphu- rous acid coming in contact with water. It was observed, that although two gaseous bodies were in this experi- ment rapidly condensed into a solid form, no evident evolution of caloric took place; that is, the balloon did not get sensibly warm, but on the decomposition of the nitro-sulphurous acid great heat was produced, although a gas was rapidly evolved. The affinity for each other of two acids, both electro-negative bodies, so strong as to condense both from the state of gas, and so determi- nate in proportion as to induce a definite form of crystallization, is also worthy of remark.—(A. D. Jr.) Aconitum.—M. Braudes has announced that this plant con- tains a vegetable alkali, to which he has given the name of Aconi- tine.—Ch. and R. Peschier, an apothecary at Geneva, examined, by Sertiirner’s process, both the Aconitum Napellus and A. paniculatum. He found them to contain an acid and a peculiar alkali; a small quantity of waxy matter, with phosphate and carbonate of lime. The acid formed crystallizable salts with potass and soda; an insoluble compound with baryta, did not precipitate the salts of lime, iron, copper, or zinc, but had a powerful action on those of silver, quicksilver, and especially of lead. The alkaline principle on being mixed with alcohol formed a milky solution, which soon became clear, and ac- quired a crystalline crust. It dissolved without effervescence in acids, and yielded crystallizable salts. * Trommsdorff ascertained that the salt which precipitates on evaporat- ing the juice of the A. tauricum, was, in all probability, malate of lime, and the same salt was found in the officinal extract of aconite, t So far as I have been able to learn. Dr R. Brandes has not published any detailed account of the properties of aconitine. In the intro- duction to his very elaborate paper on Atropa Belladonna, he merely enumerates aconite among the vegetables which contain a poisonous base; J and in a subsequent volume, he distinctly states that he has discovered the narcotic principles of aconite, and of all other narcotic plants, but is obliged to postpone the publication of his in- vestigation on account of his injured health. || Geiger, in a historical review of the organic bases, enumerates aconi- tine as discovered by Brandes in the Aconitum Neomontanum, but * TrommsdorfTs neues Journal der Pharmacie, B. v. p. 84. 1821. •f Trommsdorffs neues Journ. B. vii. p. 21. 1823. % Buchner’s Repertorium fur die Pharmacie, B. viii. p. 296. 1820. \\ Buchner’s Repert. B. xxi* p. 33. 1825.