Chapter XIV: Medicines From the Metals 376 (11)

Sal Volatile Oleosum was introduced by Sylvius (de la Boe) about the year 1650. It became a medicated stimulant of the utmost popularity, and there were many formulas for it. One of the most famous was Goddard’s Drop. (See page 319).

Ammonia in gaseous form was first obtained by Priestley in 1774. He called it alkaline air. Scheele soon after established that it contained nitrogen and Berthollet proved its chemical composition in 1785.

SPIRITUS AMMONIÆ AROMATICUS

was first inserted in the P.L. 1721, under the title of “Spiritus Salis Volatilis Oleosus.” Cinnamon, mace, cloves, citron, sal ammoniac, and salts of tartar were distilled with spirit of wine. In 1746 the process was altered, sal ammoniac and fixed alkali being first distilled with proof spirit to yield “spiritus salis anmioniaci dulcis,” to which essential oils of lemon, nutmeg, and cloves were added, and the mixture was then re-distilled. In 1788 the spirit became spiritus ammoniæ compositus, and the redistillation when the oils had been added was omitted. The name spiritus ammoniæ aromaticus was first adopted in the P.L. 1809, and has been retained ever since, though the process of making it has been frequently varied. That title was first given to it in the Dublin Pharmacopœia of 1807. Spiritus Salinus Aromaticus was the first title adopted in the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia. It was a preparation similar to that of the P.L., but angelica, marjoram, galangal, anthos flowers, orange, and lemon were additional flavours.

Quincy (1724) credits Sylvius with the invention of this spirit, which he refers to as “mightily now in use,” and as “a most noble cephalic and cordial.” It had “almost excluded the use of spirit of hartshorn.” This preparation, invented by Sylvius, was called the Carminative Spirit of Sylvius.

Mindererus’s Spirit, made from distilled vinegar and the volatile spirit of hartshorn, is believed by many competent authorities to have possessed virtues which are not contained in the modern liquor ammonii acetati. The late Professor Redwood was one of these. He believed that the old preparation contained a trace of cyanic ether. The new liquor, he said, made from strong caustic solution of ammonia and strong acetic acid, “is but the ghost of the old preparation. It is as unlike the true Mindererus’s Spirit as a glass of vapid distilled water is unlike the sparkling crystal water as it springs from a gushing fountain” (_Pharm. Jnl._, Vol. V., N.S. p. 408). Mindererus was a physician of Augsburg who died in 1621. It was Boerhaave in 1732 who advocated the use of Mindererus’s Spirit and made it popular.

Eau de Luce, which was official in the P.L. 1824, under the title of Spiritus Ammoniæ Succinatus, was an ammonia compound which became popular in France, and, in some degree all over Europe, about the middle of the eighteenth century, and was apparently first sold for removing grease from cloth and other fabrics. It is said that one of the pupils of Bernard Jussieu, having been bitten by a viper, applied some of the preparation, and was cured by it. It thence acquired a medical fame, which it still retains. The P.L. formula ordered 3 drachms of mastic, 4 minims of oil of amber, and 14 minims of oil of lavender to be dissolved in 9 fluid drachms of rectified spirit, and mixed with 10 fluid ounces of solution of ammonia. In some of the Continental pharmacopœias a much larger proportion of oil of amber is prescribed, and sometimes only that and spirit of ammonia. In some soap is ordered. In the P.L., 1851, the oil of amber was omitted. It has been recommended for external application in rheumatism and paralysis.

It has been generally asserted that this preparation was devised by a pharmacist of Lille (some say of Amsterdam), of the name of Luce. It is also asserted that a Paris pharmacist named Dubalen originated it, and that he and his successor Juliot made it popular; that Luce of Lille imitated it, but that not being able to get it purely white added some copper and gave it a blue tint which came to be a mark of its genuineness. Among the names applied to it have been Aqua Luccana, Aqua Sancti Luciæ, Aqua Lucii, and Eau de Lusse.

BROMINE.

Bromine, isolated by Balard in 1826, was named by the discoverer Muride, from Muria, brine. Its actual name was suggested by Gay Lussac from Bromos, a stench.

Schultzenberger relates, on the authority of Stas, that some years before the discovery of bromine by Balard, a bottle of nearly pure bromine was sent to Liebig by a German company of manufacturers of salt, with the request that he would examine it. Somewhat carelessly the great chemist tested the product and assumed that it was chloride of iodine. But he put away the bottle, probably with the intention of investigating it more closely when he had more leisure. When he heard of Balard’s discovery he turned to this bottle and realised what he had missed. Schultzenberger says he kept it in a special cupboard labelled “Cupboard of Mistakes,” and would sometimes show it to his friends as an example of the danger of coming to a conclusion too promptly.

COLLODION.

Pyroxylin was discovered by Schönbein in 1847, and the next year an American medical student at Boston, Massachussets, described in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences his experiments showing the use that could be made of this substance in surgery when dissolved in ether and alcohol. By painting it on a band of leather one inch wide and attaching this to the hand, he caused the band to adhere so firmly that it could not be detached by a weight of twenty pounds.

EPSOM SALTS.

The medicinal value of the Epsom springs was discovered, it is believed, towards the end of the sixteenth century, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. According to a local tradition the particular spring which became so famous was not used for any purpose until one very dry summer, when the farmer on whose land it existed bethought him to dig the ground round about the spring, so as to make a pond for his cattle to drink from. Having done this he found that the animals would not touch the water, and on tasting it himself he appreciated their objection to it. The peculiar merits of the water becoming known, certain London physicians sent patients to Epsom to drink it, and it proved especially useful in the cases of some who suffered with old ulcers. Apparently the sores were washed with it. The name of the farmer who contributed this important item to medical history was Henry Wicker or Wickes.

In 1621 the owner of the estate where the spring had been found walled in the well, and erected a shed for the convenience of the sick visitors, who were then resorting to Epsom in increasing numbers. By 1640 the Epsom Spa had become famous. The third Lord North, who published a book called the Forest of Varieties in 1645, claimed to have been the first to have made known the virtues of both the Epsom and the Tonbridge waters to the King’s sick subjects, “the journey to the German Spa being too expensive and inconvenient to sick persons, and great sums of money being thereby carried out of the kingdom.”

After the Restoration Epsom became a fashionable watering-place. Before 1700 a ball-room had been built, and a promenade laid out; a number of new inns and boarding-houses had been opened; sedan-chairs and hackney coaches crowded the streets; and sports and play of all kinds were provided. Pepys mentions visits to Epsom more than once in his Diary, and Charles II and some of his favourites were there occasionally. The town reached its zenith of gaiety in the reign of Queen Anne, who with her husband, Prince George of Denmark, frequently drove from Windsor to Epsom to drink the waters.

An apothecary living at Epsom in those times, and who had prospered abundantly from the influx of visitors, is alleged to have done much to check the hopeful prospects of the Surrey village. Much wanted more, and Mr. Levingstern, the practitioner referred to, thought he saw his way to a large fortune. He found another spring about half a mile from the Old Wells, bought the land on which it was situated, built on it a large assembly room for music, dancing, and gambling, and provided a multitude of attractions, including games, fashion shops, and other luxuries. At first he drew the crowds away from the Old Wells. But his Epsom water did not give satisfaction. For some reason it brought the remedial fame of the springs generally into disrepute. Then Levingstern bought the lease of the Old Wells, and, unwisely it may be thought, shut them up altogether. The glory of Epsom had departed, and though several efforts were made subsequently to tempt society back to it, they were invariably unsuccessful. The building at the Old Wells was pulled down in 1802, and a private house built on the site. This house is called The Wells, and the original well is still to be seen in the garden. The very site of Mr. Levingstern’s “New Wells” is now doubtful. He died in 1827.

In 1695 Nehemiah Grew, physician, and secretary of the Royal Society, wrote a treatise “On the Bitter Cathartic Salt in the Epsom Water.” Dr. Grew names 1620 as about the date when the medicinal spring was discovered at Epsom by a countryman, and he says that for about ten years the countrypeople only used it to wash external ulcers. He relates that it was Lord Dudley North, who apparently lived near by, who first began to take it as a medicine. He had been in the habit of visiting the German spas, as he “laboured under a melancholy disposition.” He used it, we are told, with abundant success, and regarded it as a medicine sent from heaven. Among those whom he induced to take the Epsom waters were Maria de Medicis, the mother of the wife of Charles I, Lord Goring, the Earl of Norwich, and many other persons of quality. These having shown the way, the physicians of London began to recommend the waters, and then, Dr. Grew tells us, the place got crowded, as many as 2,000 persons having taken the water in a single day.

Born, 1628; died, 1711.

(From an engraving by R. White, from life.)

Dr. Grew was for many years secretary of the Royal Society and
editor of the _Philosophical Transactions_. He was one of the
pioneers of the science of structural botany and author of
_The Anatomy of Plants_.
]

It was Dr. Grew who first extracted the salt from the Epsom water, and his treatise deals principally with that. He describes the effect of adding all sorts of chemicals, oil of vitriol, salt of tartar, nitre, galls, syrup of violets, and other substances to the solution; explains how it differs from the sal mirabilis (sulphate of soda); and writes of its delicate bitter taste as if he were commenting on a new wine. It most resembles the crystals of silver, he says, in the similitude of taste.

As to the medicinal value of this salt Dr. Grew says it is free from the malignant quality of most cathartics, never violently agitates the humours, nor causes sickness, faintings, or pains in the bowels. He recommends it for digestive disorders, heartburn, loss of appetite, and colic; in hypochondriacal distemper, in stone, diabetes, jaundice, vertigo, and (to quote the English translation) “in wandering gout, vulgarly but erroneously called the rheumatism.” It will exterminate worms in children in doses of 1½ to 2 drachms, if given after 1, 2, or 3 grains of mercurius dulcis, according to age. Epsom salts were not to be given in dropsy, intermittent fevers, chlorosis, blood-spitting, to paralytics, or to women with child.

“I generally prescribe,” writes the doctor, “one, two, or three pints of water, aromatised with a little mace, to which I add ½ oz. or 1 oz., or a greater dose of the salt.” He gives a specimen prescription which orders 1 oz. or 10 drachms of the salt in 2 quarts of spring water, with 1 drachm of mace. This dose (2 quarts, remember) was to be taken in the morning in the course of two hours, generally warm, and taking a little exercise meanwhile. This was what was called an apozem. You might add to the apozem, if thought desirable, 3 drachms of senna and 1½ oz. or 2 oz. of flaky manna.

Mr. Francis Moult, Chymist, at the sign of the Glauber’s Head, Watling Street, London, translated Dr. Grew’s treatise into English, and gave a copy to buyers of the Bitter Purging Salts. Probably he was the “furnace philosopher” referred to by Quincy (see below), though it is difficult to see what there was to object to in his action.

George and Francis Moult (the latter was, no doubt, the chymist who kept the shop in Watling Street) in about the year 1700 found a more abundant supply of the popular salt in a spring at Shooter’s Hill, where it is recorded they boiled down as much as 200 barrels of the water in a week, obtaining some 2 cwt. of salt from these. Some time after, a Dr. Hoy discovered a new method of producing an artificial salt which corresponded in all respects with the cathartic salts obtained from Epsom water, and which by reason of the price soon drove the latter out of the market, and caused the Shooter’s Hill works to be closed. It was known that Hoy’s salt was made from sea water, and at first it was alleged to be the sal mirabilis of Glauber, sulphate of soda. But this was disproved, and experiments were carried on at the salt works belonging to Lady Carrington at Portsmouth, and later at Lymington, where the manufacture settled for many years, the source being the residue after salt had been made, called the bittern--salts of magnesium, in fact. This was the principal source of supply, though it was made in many places and under various patents until in 1816 Dr. Henry, of Manchester, took out a patent for the production of sulphate of magnesia from dolomite.

It should be mentioned that it was by the examination of Epsom salts that Black was led to his epoch-making discovery of the distinction between the alkaline earths, and also of fixed air, in 1754.

In Quincy’s “Dispensatory” (1724), medicinal waters like those of Epsom are described as Aquæ Aluminosæ. It is stated that there are many in England, scarce a county without them. The principal ones about London are at Epsom, Acton, Dulwich, and North-hall. They all “abound with a salt of an aluminous and nitrous nature,” and “greatly deterge the stomach and bowels.” But it is easy to take them too frequently, so that “the salts will too much get into the blood, which by their grossness will gradually be collected in the capillaries and glands to obstruct them and occasion fevers.” After some more advice Quincy adds--

“It is difficult to pass this article without setting a mark
upon that abominable cheat which is now sold by the name
of Epsom waters. Dr. Grew, who was a most worthy physician
and an industrious experimenter, made trial how much salt
these waters would leave upon evaporation, and found that a
gallon left about two drams, or near, according to my best
remembrance, for I have not his writings by me. He likewise
found the salt thus procured answered the virtues of the water
in its cathartic qualities. Of this an account was given
before the Royal Society in a Latin dissertation. But the
avaricious craft of a certain furnace-philosopher could not
let this useful discovery in natural knowledge rest under the
improvement and proper use of persons of integrity; but he
pretended to make a great quantity for sale; and to recommend
his salt translated the Doctor’s Lecture into English to give
away as a quack-bill.”

Quincy proceeds to tell us how other competitors came in, and how the price was so reduced that what was first sold at one shilling an ounce, and could not honestly be made under (Quincy apparently refers to the salt made by evaporation), came down in a short time to thirty shillings per hundredweight.

ETHER.

The action of sulphuric acid on spirit of wine is alluded to in the works of Raymond Lully in the thirteenth century, and in those attributed to Basil Valentine, by whom the product is described as “an agreeable essence and of good odour.” Valerius Cordus, in 1517, described a liquor which he called Oleum Vitrioli Dulce in his “Chemical Pharmacopœia.” This was intended to represent the Spiritus Vitrioli Antepilepticus Paracelsi. It was prepared by distilling a mixture of equal parts of sulphuric acid and spirit of wine, after this mixture had been digested in hot ashes for two months. Probably the product obtained by Cordus was what came to be called later the sweet oil of wine, and not what we know as sulphuric ether.

The first ether made for medicinal purposes was manufactured in the laboratory directed by Robert Boyle, and it is said that he and Sir Isaac Newton made some experiments with it at the time. A paper describing his ether investigations was published by Newton in the “Philosophical Transactions” for May, 1700. In 1700 a paper on ether was published by Dr. Frobenius in the “Philosophical Transactions,” and in the same publication in 1741 a further paper appeared giving the process by which Frobenius had prepared his “Spiritus Vini Ethereus.” Equal parts of oil of vitriol and highly rectified spirit of wine by weight were distilled until a dense liquid began to pass; the retort was then cooled, half the original weight of spirit was added, and the distillation again renewed. This process was repeated as long as ether was produced. Frobenius had been associated with Ambrose Godfrey in Boyle’s laboratory, and Godfrey had been supplying ether for some years, but he does not seem to have published his process. It was in Frobenius’s first paper, published in 1730, that the name of ether was first proposed for the product, which had been previously known as Aqua Lulliana, Aqua Temperata, Oleum Dulce Paracelsi, and such-like fancy titles. Frobenius, it was understood, was a _nom de plume_. Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz, Boyle’s chemist, sharply criticised Frobenius’s article, said it was a rhapsody in the style of the alchemists, and that the experiments indicated had been already described by Boyle. Godfrey was, in fact, at that time making and selling this interesting substance. In France, the Duke of Orleans, a clever chemist, who was suspected to have had some association with the famous poisonings of his time, and whose laboratory was at the Abbaye Ste. Genevieve, was the first to produce ether in quantities of a pint at a time.

Hoffmann’s “Mineral Anodyne Liquor,” the original of our Spiritus Ætheris Co., was a semi-secret preparation much prescribed by the famous inventor. He said it was composed of the dulcified spirit of vitriol and the aromatic oil which came over after it. But he did not state in what proportion he mixed these, nor the exact process he followed.

The chemical nature of sulphuric ether was long in doubt. Macquer, who considered that ether was alcohol deprived of its aqueous principle, was the most accurate of the early investigators. Scheele held that ether was dephlogisticated alcohol. Pelletier described it as alcohol oxygenised at the expense of the sulphuric acid. De Saussure, Gay-Lussac, and Liebig studied the substance, but it was Dumas and Boullay in 1837, and Williamson in 1854, who cleared up the chemistry of ethers.

Ether is alcohol, two molecules deprived of H_{2}O [alcohol, C_{2}H_{5}O HO; ether, (C_{2}H_{5})_{2}O]. Distilling spirit of wine and sulphuric acid together, it seemed obvious that the sulphuric acid should possess itself of the H_{2}O, and leave the ether. But on this theory it was not possible to explain the invariable formation of sulphovinic acid (a sulphate of ethyl) in the process, nor the simultaneous distillation of water with the ether. Williamson proved that the acid first combined with the alcohol molecule, setting the water free, and that then an excess of alcohol decomposed the sulphovinic acid thus formed into free sulphuric acid and ether, this circuit proceeding continuously.

SPIRIT OF NITROUS ETHER.

This popular medicine has been traced back to Raymond Lully in the thirteenth century, and to Basil Valentine. But the doctor who brought it into general use was Sylvius (de la Boe) of Leyden, for whom it was sold as a lithontryptic at a very high price. It first appeared in the P.L., 1746, as Spiritus Nitri dulcis. In English this was for a long time called “dulcified spirit of nitre,” and in the form of sweet spirit of nitre still remains on our labels. In the P.L., 1788, the title was changed to Spiritus Ætheris nitrosi, and in that of 1809 to Spiritus Ætheris nitrici. The process ordered in the first official formula was to distil 6 oz. (apoth. weight) of nitric acid of 1·5 specific gravity, with 32 fluid oz. of rectified spirit. Successive reductions were made in the proportion and strength of the acid in the pharmacopœias of 1809, 1824, and 1851, to 3½ fluid ounces of nitric acid, sp. gr. 1·42, with 40 fluid ounces of rectified spirit, and a product of 28 fluid ounces. The object of these several modifications was to avoid the violent reaction which affected the nature of the product.

ETHIOPS.

Æthiops or Ethiops originally meant a negro or something black. The word is alleged to have been derived from aithein, to burn, and ops, the face, but this etymology was probably devised to fit the facts. There is no historical evidence in its favour. Most likely the word was a native African one of unknown meaning. It became a popular pharmaceutical term two or three hundred years ago, but is now almost obsolete, at least in this country. In France several mercurial preparations are still known by the name of Ethiops. There are, for instance, the Ethiops magnesium, the Ethiops saccharine, and the Ethiops gommeux; combinations of mercury with magnesia, sugar, and gum acacia respectively. These designations echo the mysteries of alchemy.

Ethiops alone meant Ethiops Mineral. This was a combination of mercury and sulphur, generally equal parts, rubbed together until all the mercury was killed. It was a very uncertain preparation, but was believed to be specially good for worms. “Infallible against the itch,” says Quincy, 1724. Its chemical composition varied from a mere mixture of the two substances to a mixture of sulphur and bisulphide of mercury, according to the conditions in which it was kept. It was formerly known as the hypnotic powder of Jacobi.

Ethiops Martial was the black oxide of iron. It was a mixture of protoxide and sesquioxide of iron. Lemery’s process was the one usually recommended, but perhaps not always followed. It was to keep iron filings always covered with water and frequently stirred for several months until the oxide was a smooth black powder. Lemery’s Crocus Martis was a similar preparation but contained more of the sesquioxide. The Edinburgh and Dublin Pharmacopœias of 1826 ordered simply scales of iron collected from a blacksmith’s anvil, purified by applying a magnet, and reduced to a fine powder. This was a favourite preparation of iron with Sydenham. Made into pills with extract of wormwood, the Ethiops Martial constituted the pilula ferri of Swediaur.

Ethiopic pills were similar to Plummer’s pills (pil. calomel. co.). Guy’s ethiopic powder was once a well-known remedy for worms. It was composed of equal parts of pure rasped tin, mercury, and sulphur. Vegetable ethiops was the ashes of fucus vesiculosus which were given in scrofulous complaints and in goitre before iodine was discovered. The ashes contain a small proportion of iodine. Dr. Runel (“Dissertation on the Use of Sea Water,” 1759) says it far exceeds burnt sponge in virtue.

Huxham recommended an Aethiops Antimoniale, composed of two parts of sulphide of antimony and one part of flowers of sulphur. The older Aethiops Antimoniale was a combination of antimony chloride with mercury, and was given in venereal and scrofulous complaints. Mercury with chalk was sometimes called absorbent ethiops, or alkalised ethiops.

IODINE

was discovered by Bernard Courtois in 1811. Courtois, who was born at Dijon in 1777, was apprenticed to a pharmacist at Auxerre named Fremy, grandfather of the noted chemist of that name, and was afterwards associated as assistant with Seguin, Thénard, and Fourcroy. He had worked with the first-named of these in the isolation of the active principle of opium, whereby Seguin so nearly secured the glory of the discovery of the alkaloids. In 1811 Courtois was manufacturing artificial nitre, and experimenting on the extraction of alkali from seaweed. He had crystallised soda from some of the mother liquor until it would yield no more crystals, and then he warmed the liquor in a vessel to which a little sulphuric acid had been accidentally added. He was surprised to see beautiful violet vapours disengaged, and from these scales of a grayish-black colour and of metallic lustre were deposited.

Courtois was too busy at the time to follow up his discovery, but he brought it to the notice of a chemist friend named Clement. The latter presented a report of his experiments to the Academy of Sciences on November 20th, 1813, two years after Courtois’s first observation. No suggestion was made by Courtois or Clement of the new substance being an element.

This deduction became the occasion of an acrimonious dispute between Gay-Lussac and Humphry Davy. The English chemist happened to be in Paris (by special favour of Napoleon) at the time when Clement read his paper. He immediately commenced experimenting, and was apparently the first to suspect the elementary nature of iodine. His claim was confirmed by a communication he made to Cuvier. But Gay-Lussac forestalled his announcement in a paper he read at the Academy on December 6th, 1813. Davy complained of the trick Gay-Lussac played him, and Hofer, who investigated the circumstances, came to the conclusion that Davy was certainly the first to recognise iodine as a simple _body_, and to give it its name from the Greek, Ion, violet. Ion was originally Fion, but had lost its initial. The Latin viola was derived from the original word.

Jean Francois Coindet, of Geneva (an Edinburgh graduate), suspected that iodine was the active constituent of burnt sponge, which had long been empirically employed in goitre and scrofula, and having proved that this was the case, was the first physician to use iodine as a remedy. The pharmaceutical forms and the medical uses of iodine have been very numerous during the century which has almost elapsed since its introduction, but it would be impossible even to detail them here.

Iodoform was first prepared by Serullas about 1828, and its chemical composition was elucidated by Dumas soon after. It was first used in medicine by Bouchardat in 1836, and then dropped out of practice for about twenty years, when it again appeared in French treatises, and its use soon became general as an antiseptic application.

Bernard Courtois was awarded 6,000 francs by the Academy of Sciences in 1832, but he died in Paris in 1838 in poverty. He had been ruined in 1815 by the competition of East Indian saltpetre with the artificial nitre which he was manufacturing. In that year the prohibitive duty on the native product was removed. When the Academy awarded 6,000 francs to Courtois it also voted 3,000 francs to Coindet, who had so promptly made medical use of Courtois’ discovery.

LITHIUM.

Lithium, the oxide of which was discovered in 1807 by Arfwedson, was first suggested as a remedy for gout by Dr. Ure in 1843. He based his proposal on an observation by Lipowitz of the singular power of lithium in dissolving uric acid. Dr. Garrod popularised the employment of the carbonate of lithium in medicine. Most of the natural mineral waters which had acquired a reputation in gouty affections have been found to contain lithium.

MAGNESIA.

The first use of carbonate of magnesia medicinally was in the form of a secret medicine which must have acquired much popularity in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was prepared, says Bergmann, by a regular canon at Rome, sold under the title of the powder of the Count of Palma, and credited with almost universal virtues. The method of preparation was rigidly concealed, but it evidently attracted the attention of chemists and physicians, for it appears that in 1707 Valentini published a process by which a similar product could be obtained from the mother liquor of “nitre” (soda) by calcination. In 1709 Slevogt obtained a powder exactly resembling it by precipitating magnesia from a solution of the sulphate by potash. Lancisi reported on it in 1717, and in 1722 Hoffmann went near to explaining the distinction between the several earthy salts, which in his time were all regarded as calcareous.

Hoffmann’s process to obtain the powder was to add a solution of carbonate of potash to the mother liquor from which rough nitre had been obtained (solution of chloride of magnesium), and collect the precipitate. This being yielded by two clear solutions gave to the carbonate of magnesia precipitated the name of Miraculum Chemicum.

Magnesia was the name of a district in Thessaly, and of two cities in Asia Minor. The Greek “magnesia lithos,” magnesian stone, has been frequently applied to the lodestone, but this can hardly have been correct, as the magnesian stone was described as white and shining like silver. Liddell and Scott think talc was more probably the substance. The alchemists sometimes mention a magnesia, but the name seems to have been a very elastic one with them. The Historical English Dictionary quotes the following reference to the word from “Norton Ord. Alch.,” 1477:--“Another stone you must have ... a stone glittering with perspicuitie ... the price of an ounce conveniently is Twenty Shillings. Her name is Magnetia. Few people her knows.”

Paracelsus uses the term in the sense of an amalgam. He writes of the Magnesia of Gold. In Pomet’s “History of Drugs,” 1712, magnesia meant manganese. Hoffmann, 1722, first applied the name to oxide of magnesia, adapting it from the medical Latin term, magnes carneus, flesh magnet, because it adheres so strongly to the lips, the fancy being that it attracts the flesh as the lodestone attracts iron.

Hoffmann’s observations on magnesia and its salts, which were published in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, were very intelligent, and undoubtedly it was he who first distinguished magnesia from chalk. He says “A number of springs, among which I may mention Eger, Elster, Schwalbach, and Wilding, contain a neutral salt which has not yet received a name, and which is almost unknown. I have also found it in the waters of Hornhausen which owe to this salt their aperient and diuretic properties. Authors commonly call it nitre; but it has nothing in common with nitre. It is not inflammable, its crystallising form is entirely different, and it does not yield aqua fortis. It is a neutral salt similar to the arcanum duplicatum (sulphate of potash), bitter in taste, and producing on the tongue a sensation of cold.” He further states that the salt in question appears to proceed from the combination of sulphuric acid with a calcareous earth of alkaline nature. The combination “is effected in the bosom of the earth.” In another of his works Hoffmann distinguishes the magnesian salt from one of lime, showing particularly that the latter was but slightly soluble and had scarcely any taste. Crabs’ eyes and egg shells he notes combine with sulphuric acid and form salts with no taste. The sulphate of this earth (Epsom salt) he found had a strong bitter taste.

The true character of magnesia and its salts was not clearly understood until Joseph Black unravelled the complications of the alkaline salts by his historic investigation, which became one of the most noted epochs of chemistry by its incidental revelation of the combination of the caustic alkalies with what Black termed “fixed air,” subsequently named carbonic acid gas by Lavoisier in 1784. When Black was studying medicine at Edinburgh a lively controversy was in progress in medical circles on the mode of action of the lithontriptic medicines which had lately been introduced. Drs. Whytt and Aston, both university professors, were the leaders in this dispute. Whytt held that lime water made from oyster shells was more effective for dissolving calculi in the bladder than lime water prepared from ordinary calcareous stone. Alston insisted that the latter was preferable. Black was interested, and his experiments convinced him of the scientific importance of his discoveries. He postponed taking his degree for some time in order to be sure of his facts. His graduation thesis, which was dated June 11, 1754, was entitled “De humore acide cibis orto et magnesia alba.” His full treatise, “Experiments upon magnesia alba, quicklime, and some other alkaline substances,” was published in 1756. It had been previously believed that the process of calcining certain alkaline salts whereby caustic alkalies were produced was explained by the combination with the salt of an acrid principle derived from the fire. Now it was shown that something was lost in the process; that the calcined alkali weighed less than the salt experimented with. The something expelled Black proved was an air, and an air different from that of the atmosphere, which was generally supposed to be the one air of the universe. He identified it with the “gas sylvestre” of Van Helmont, and named it “fixed air.” Magnesia alba first appeared in the London Pharmacopœia of 1787 under that name.

(From a print in the British Museum.)
]

The oxide of magnesia was believed to be an elementary substance until Sir Humphry Davy separated the metal from the earth by his electrolytic method in the presence of mercury. By this means he obtained an amalgam, and by oxidising this he reproduced magnesia and left the mercury free, thus proving that the earth was an oxide of a metal. In 1830 Bussy isolated the magnesium by heating in a glass tube some potassium covered with fragments of chloride of magnesium, and washing away the chloride of potassium formed. Magnesium in small globules was left in the tube. The metal is now prepared on an industrial scale either by electrolysis, or by fusing fluor-spar with sodium. At present the uses of magnesium and of its derivatives are infinitesimal in comparison with the vast quantities available in deposits, as in dolomite, and in the sea.

NITRE

among the ancient Greeks and Romans generally meant carbonate of soda, sometimes carbonate of potash. The Arab chemists, however, clearly described nitrate of potash. In the works attributed to Geber and Marcus Græcus, especially, its characters are represented. Raymond Lully, in the thirteenth century, mentions sal nitri, and evidently alludes to saltpetre, and Roger Bacon always meant nitrate of potash when he wrote of nitre. It was not, however, until the seventeenth century that the term acquired the definite meaning which we attach to it.

At the beginning of that century there was much discussion as to the formation of nitre, as it had been held that the acid which combined with the alkali was ready formed in the atmosphere. Glauber was the first to argue that vegetables formed saltpetre from the soil. Stahl taught that the acid constituent of nitre was vitriolic acid combined with phlogiston emanating from putrefying vegetable matter.

After gunpowder had become a prime necessity of life, saltpetre bounded upwards in the estimation of kings and statesmen. In France in 1540 an Edict was issued commissioning officials called “salpêtriers” in all districts who were authorised to seek for saltpetre in cellars, stables, dovecotes, and other places where it was formed naturally. No one was permitted to pull down a building of any sort without first giving due notice to the salpêtriers. The “Salpêtrière” Asylum in Paris recalls one of the national factories of nitre. During the French Revolution citizens were “invited” to lixiviate the soil and ceilings of their cellars, stables, etc., and to supply the Republic with saltpetre for gunpowder. The Government paid 24 sous, 1s., a pound for the nitre thus procured, though, as this was no doubt paid in assignats, it was cheap enough. It was estimated that 16,000,000 lbs. a year were thus provided.

PETROLEUM.

Under the name of naphtha and other designations petroleum has been known and used from the earliest times. The Persians were the first, as far as is known, to employ it for lighting, and also for cooking. They likewise made use of it as a liniment for rheumatism. So in this country, a kind of petroleum was sold as a liniment under the name of British oil; and in America, long before the great oil industry had been thought of, petroleum was popular as a liniment for rheumatism under the name of Seneca Oil.

Asphalt, or Bitumen of Judæa, was used by the Egyptians for embalming. Probably they reduced its solidity by naphtha. Naphtha was employed by Medea to render the robe which she presented to her rival Glauca inflammable, and this legend is given to account for the name of Oil of Medea, by which petroleum was anciently known. It was no doubt the principal ingredient in the Greek Fire of the middle ages.

Petroleum has been called by many other names. Oil of Peter or Petre was a common one, meaning, like petroleum, simply rock oil. Myrepsus, in the thirteenth century, refers to it as Allicola. The monks called it sometimes oil of St. Barbarus, and oil of St. Catherine.

Dioscorides said naphtha was useful as an application in dimness of sight. Two centuries ago it was occasionally given in doses of a few drops for worms, and was frequently applied in toothache. Petroleum Barbadense, Barbadoes tar, had some reputation in pectoral complaints in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was admitted into the P.L. as the menstruum for sulphur in the balsamum sulphuris Barbadense.

PHOSPHORUS.

Phosphorus, or its Latin equivalent, Lucifer, was the name given by the ancient astronomers to the planet Venus when it appeared as a morning star. When it shone as an evening star they called it Hesperus. Do we invent such seductive names now, or do they only seem attractive to us because they are ancient or foreign?

The phosphorescent properties of certain earths had been occasionally noticed by naturalists, but no observation of the kind has been traced in ancient writings. The earliest allusion to a “fire-stone” known occurs in the work of a gossipy French historian named De Thou. In a history of his own times this writer relates that in 1550, when Henri II made his state entry into Boulogne on the occasion of its restoration to France by the English, a stranger in foreign costume presented the king with a fire-stone which, he said, had been brought from India. De Thou narrates that this wonderful stone glowed with inconceivable splendour, was so hot that it could not be touched without danger, and that if confined in a close space it would spring with force into the air.

Sometime early in the seventeenth century, a shoemaker of Bologna, one Vincent Cascariolo, who, in addition to his ordinary business dabbled in alchemy, discovered a stone in the neighbourhood of his city which was luminous in the dark. The stone, which is now known to have been a sulphate of barium, and which the shoemaker calcined, ground, and formed into little round discs about the size of a shilling, and sold for a fancy price, was called the sun-stone. The discs, exposed to a strong light for a few minutes and then withdrawn into a dark room, gave out the incandescent light which we know so well. The discovery excited keen interest among scientific men all over Europe.

(From the Collection of Etchings in the Royal Gallery at Berlin.)
]

About 1668 two alchemists named Bauduin and Frueben, who lived at Grossenhayn in Saxony, conceived the idea of extracting by chemical processes the spirit of the world (Spiritus Mundi). Their notion was to combine earth, air, fire, and water in their alembic, and to obtain the essences of all of these in one distillate. They dissolved lime in nitric acid, evaporated to dryness, exposed the residue to the air, and let it absorb humidity. They then distilled this substance and obtained the humidity in a pure form. History does not tell us what questions they put to their spirit of the world when they had thus caught it. It appears, however, that the stuff attained a great sale. It was supplied at 12 groschen the loth, equal to about 1s. 6d. per ounce, and lords and peasants came after it eagerly. Rain-water would have been just as good, Kunckel, who tells the story, remarks. But one day Bauduin broke one of the vessels in which was contained some of the calcined nitrate of lime, and he observed that this, like the Bologna stone, was luminous in the dark after exposure to sunlight. Bauduin appreciated the importance of his discovery, and, taking some of his earth to Dresden, talked about it there. Kunckel, who was then the Elector’s pharmacist, and keenly interested in new discoveries, heard about this curious substance, and was very curious to find out all he could. He visited Bauduin and tried to draw from him the details of his process. But Bauduin was very shy of Kunckel, and the latter has left an amusing account of an evening he spent with his quarry. Kunckel tried to talk chemistry, but Bauduin would only take interest in music. At last, however, Kunckel induced Bauduin to go out of the room to fetch a concave mirror to see if with that the precious phosphorus (for Bauduin had already appropriated this name to the stuff) would absorb the light. While Bauduin was gone Kunckel managed to nip a morsel with his finger-nail. With this, aided by the fragments of information he had been able to steal from Bauduin’s conversation, he commenced to experiment by treating chalk with nitric acid, and ultimately succeeded in producing the coveted luminous earth. He sent a little lump of it to Bauduin as an acknowledgment of the pleasant musical evening the latter had given him.

It was now 1669. Kunckel was visiting Hamburg, and there he showed to a scientific friend a piece of his “phosphorus.” To his surprise the friend was not at all astonished at it, but told Kunckel that an old doctor in Hamburg had produced something much more wonderful. Brandt was the name of the local alchemist. He had been in business, had failed, and was now practising medicine enough to keep him, but was devoting his heart and soul and all his spare time to the discovery of the philosopher’s stone. The two friends visited Brandt, who showed them the real “phosphor” which he had produced, to which, of course, the other substances compared as dip candles might to the electric light, but nothing would induce the old gentleman to disclose any details of his process. Kunckel wrote to a scientific friend happily named Krafft at Dresden about the new “phosphor.” Honour seems to have been cheap among scientific friends at that time, for Krafft posted off to Hamburg, without saying anything to Kunckel about his intention, caught Brandt in a different humour, or perhaps specially hard-up, and bought his secret for 200 thalers.

According to another story, the German chemist Homberg also succeeded in securing Brandt’s secret by taking to him as a present one of those weather prognosticators in which a figure of a man and another of a woman come out of doors or go in when it is going to be wet or fine, as the case may be; a toy which had just then been invented.

Stimulated perhaps by Brandt’s obstinacy and Krafft’s treachery, Kunckel set to work and in time succeeded in manufacturing phosphorus. It may be taken as certain that he had picked old Brandt’s brains a little, and his own skill and shrewdness enabled him to fill up the gaps in his knowledge. However he acquired the art, he soon became the first practical manufacturer of phosphorus.

Brandt discovered phosphorus because he had arrived at the conviction that the philosopher’s stone was to be got from urine. In the course of his experiments with that liquid, phosphorus came out unexpectedly from the process of distilling urine with sand and lime.

The new substance excited great curiosity in scientific circles all over Europe, but the German chemists who knew anything about it kept their information secret, and only misleading stories of its origin were published. Robert Boyle, however, who was travelling on the Continent when the interest in the discovery was keenest, got a hint of the method of manufacture, and on his return to England proceeded to experiment. His operator and assistant in these investigations was Ambrose Godfrey Hanckwitz, who became the founder of a London pharmaceutical business which still exists. Ultimately Boyle and Hanckwitz were completely successful, and for many years the “English phosphorus” supplied by Hanckwitz from his laboratory in Southampton Street, Strand, monopolised the European market. According to a pamphlet published by him, entitled “Historia Phosphori et Fama,” the continental phosphorus was an “unctuous, dawbing oyliness,” while his was the “right glacial” kind.

In 1680 Boyle deposited with the Royal Society, of which he was then president, a sealed packet containing an account of his experiments and of his process for the production of the “Icy Noctiluca,” as he called his phosphorus.

It is related in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences of Paris for 1737 that in that year a stranger appeared in Paris and offered for a stipulated reward to communicate the process of making phosphorus to the French Government. A committee of the Academy, with Hellot as its president, was appointed to witness the stranger’s manipulation. According to the report of this committee, the experiment was completely successful.

It only remains to add, to complete the history, that in 1769, Gahn, a Swedish mine owner, discovered phosphorus in bones, and that working from this observation Scheele in 1775 devised the process for the manufacture of phosphorus which is still followed.

Such a remarkable substance as phosphorus, extracted as it had been from the human body, was evidently marked out for medical uses. Experiments were soon commenced with it. Kunckel’s “luminous pills” were the first in the field, so far as is known. His report was published in the “Chemische Anmerkungen” in 1721. He gave it in three-grain doses, and reported that it had a calmative effect! Subsequently it was tried in various diseases by continental practitioners. Mentz commended it in colic, Langensalz in asthenic fevers, Bonneken in tetanus, Wetkard in apoplexy, and Trampel in gout.

In 1769 Alphonse Leroy, of Paris, reported a curious experience. He was sent for to a patient apparently on the point of death from phthisis. Seeing that the case was hopeless, he prepared and administered a placebo of sugared water. Calling the next day, Leroy found his patient somewhat revived, and on examining the sugar which he had used for his solution, he found that some phosphorus had been kept in it for a long time. The patient was much too far gone to recover, but she survived for fifteen days, and Leroy attributed this amelioration to the phosphorised water which he had accidentally given her.

Gahn discovered phosphorus in the bones in 1768, and in 1779 another German chemist named Hensing ascertained its presence in a fatty matter which he extracted from the brain. Medical theories were naturally based on these observations. Couerbe, a French chemist quoted by Dr. Churchill, wrote thus in 1830:

“The want of phosphorus in the brain would reduce man to
the sad condition of the brute; an excess of this element
irritates the nervous system, excites the individual, and
throws him into that terrible state of disturbance called
madness, or mental alienation; a moderate proportion gives
rise to the sublimest ideas, and produces that admirable
harmony which spiritualists call the soul.”

British practitioners took but very little notice of phosphorus as a remedy in the first century of its career, although it remained for a large part of that period an English product.

It is rather curious, too, that neither in this country nor on the Continent did it get into the hands of the empirics, as mercury, antimony, and other dangerous drugs did. It may be supposed that it was not so much the danger that checked them as the pharmaceutical difficulties in the way of preparing suitable medicines. The earliest preparations of phosphorus, such as Kunckel’s pills, were a combination of it in a free state with conserve of roses. This method was gradually abandoned on account of the difficulty of subdividing the phosphorus so perfectly that the dose could be measured accurately. But as Dr. Ashburton Thompson remarks,[3] “although it is not so specifically mentioned, the uncertainty of action which imperfectly divided phosphorus exhibits” had something to do with the rejection of the old formulas. That is putting it very gently. The three-grain doses must have killed more people than they cured. The author just quoted says that in the early days “the dose employed seldom fell below 3 grains, while it occasionally rose as high as 12 grains.” Even Leroy, he adds, instituted his experiments by taking a bolus of 3 grains, and he did not seriously suffer from it. The recommended dose has been regularly declining. In 1855 Dr. Hughes Bennett gave it at one-fortieth to one-eighth of a grain. The Pharmacopœia now prescribes one-hundredth to one-twentieth of a grain.

THE HYPOPHOSPHITES.

The hypophosphites in the form of syrup were introduced by Dr. J. F. Churchill, of Paris, as specifics in consumptive diseases about 1857. His preference of these salts over the phosphates was based on the theory that the deficiency in the system in a phthisical condition was not of phosphates, which had been completely oxidised, but of a phosphide in an oxidisable condition, and this requirement was fulfilled by the hypophosphites. The latter he compared to wood or coal, the phosphates to ashes, so far as active energy was concerned. Dr. Churchill’s interest in a special manufacture of the hypophosphite syrups prejudiced the medical profession against his theories, and it is not certain that he got a fair hearing in consequence. The general verdict was that his results were not obtained by other experimenters, but for a good many years past syrups of the hypophosphites have been among the most popular of our general tonics.

Phosphorus is soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, bisulphide of carbon, and to a very small extent in water.

* * * * *

Phosphor paste as a vermin killer was ordered by the Prussian Government to be substituted for arsenical compounds in 1843, and it is probable that to some degree the alteration has been successful, though in France it was found that phosphorus in this form became a popular agent for suicide and criminal poisoning.

SAL PRUNELLA

was at one time in high esteem, as it was believed that by the process adopted for making it the nitre was specially purified. Purified nitre was melted in an iron pot and a little flowers of sulphur (1 oz. to 2 lb.) was sprinkled on it, a little at a time. The sulphur deflagrating was supposed to exercise the purifying influence on the nitre. The actual effect was to convert a small part of the nitrate of potash into sulphate. It was first called Sal Prunella in Germany from the belief that it was a specific against a certain plum-coloured quinsy of an epidemic character. Boerhaave advised the omission of the sulphur, but believed that melting the pure nitre and moulding it was of medicinal value by evaporating aqueous moisture.

Nitre and flowers of sulphur were deflagrated together before the Sal Prunella theory was invented, equal quantities being employed. The resulting combination, which was of course sulphate of potash, was known as Sal Polychrestum, the Salt of Many Virtues.

SAL GEMMÆ.

Sal Gemmæ or Sal Fossile was the name given to rock salt, particularly to the transparent and the tinted varieties. It was believed to be more penetrating than the salt derived from sea water, and this property Lemery ascribed to the circumstance that it had never been dissolved in water, and therefore retained all its native keenness.

SPIRIT OF SALT.

Spiritus Salis Marini Glauberi was one of the products discovered by Glauber, to whom we owe the name of spirit of salt. He was a keen observer and remarked on the suffocating vapour yielded as soon as oil of vitriol was poured on sea-salt. It is astonishing to his biographers that he just missed discovering chlorine. The spirit of salt was highly recommended for many medicinal uses; for exciting the appetite, correcting the bile, curing gangrene, and dissolving stone. Its remarkable property of assisting nitric acid to dissolve gold was soon observed and was attributed to its penetrating power.

TARTAR.

Tartarus was the mythological hell where the gods imprisoned and punished those who had offended them. Virgil represents it as surrounded by three walls and the river Phlegethon, whose waters were sulphur and pitch. Its entrance was protected by a tower wrapped in a cloud three times as black as the darkest night, a gate which the gods themselves could not break, and guarded by Cerberus.