water at the common temperature of the atmosphere; nor does the water in which it has been infused, exhibit any colour when tested by galls, or triple prussiat of potass: nor does it afford any precipitate by carbonat of potass. 16th. The sulphuric, the nitric, and the muriatic acids, dropt on this stone, excite no effervescence; they are diffused on it, and sink into it. 17th. It is not easily dissolved in sulphuric acid, without the aid of moderate heat. I used the top of the common tenplate stove, of about 150° of Fahrenheit; but with heat, and after some hours digestion, it becomes a white mass with this acid; which mass is soluble entirely in boiling water, producing a clear solution; there is no effervescence during the solution. 18th. Having dissolved 50 grains of the stone in sulphuric acid, and diluted the solution with hot water, I added a filtered solution of triple prussiat of potass, made in the common way, by digesting carbonat of potass on Prussian blue, till the latter no longer became discoloured. On continuing to add this while any precipitate appeared, I obtained a quantity of the most intense and beautiful Prussian blue, which, when calcined in a full red heat for an hour, yielded forty grains of red oxyd. The remaining liquor, after filtration, and precipitation by carbonat of ammonia, afforded a precipitate which, when carefully filtered, and moderately dried, weighed about 4 1-2 grains: it was alumina. It weighed less in proportion than the alumina of experiment 13, in consequence of not being so much dried. The quantity thus obtained, of iron and alumina, is probably not quite accurate, owing to the iron contained the triple prussiat: but very near the truth. 19th. This stone when powdered, dissolves in nitric acid in the warm atmosphere of a summer's day, after 10 or 12 hours digestion, without residuum. 20th. This nitric solution was evaporated to perfect dryness; the powdered residuum was digested in fresh nitric acid, which was again evaporated to dryness. A third portion of the same acid was now poured on the brown-red powder, and digested on it: about 1-10th was dissolved, as appeared on drying and weighing the residuum. The solution, moderately diluted and filtered, exhibited but very slight shades of colour with tincture of galls and solution of triple prussiat of potass, so that but trace of iron was taken up, as was originally presumed and intended: the digestion in nitric acid, and driving it off by heat, being meant for the purpose of oxyding the iron beyond the point of solubility in that acid. The last portion of nitric acid, therefore, took up nothing but the earths. These being precipitated by carbonat of ammonia, afforded about nine per cent. of earth, when dried at the heat of 150 Fahrenheit, and consisted entirely of alumina. 21st. Muriatic acid dissolves this stone by heat. The solution is of a brownish-yellow colour. It leaves no residuum. 22d. Oxalic acid and oxalat of ammonia, occasion no precipitate from any of these solutions: hence there is no trace of any of the alkaline earths. Experiments to discover the Presence of Prussic Acid in this Stone. 23d. Carbonat of potass digested on the powdered stone, takes away the colour, but does not dissolve the substance. The solution of carbonat of potass so digested on the stone in fine powder, being filtered, produced no blue precipitate when poured into a solution of sulphat of iron. 24th. A piece of this stone, suspended for many hours in a solution of sulphat of iron, diffused no trace of blue colour, either when immersed dry, or moistened with an alkaline solution. 25th. The following experiment was suggested and made for me by Mr. Cloud, who appears to have investigated the properties of palladium more fully than any other chemist. The nitro-muriat of palladium, and the nitro-muriat of gold, are not precipitated by the chromat of potass, but they are precipitated by the prussiats. When the red oxyd of mercury is triturated with Prussian blue, and boiled with water for half an hour, a prussiat of mercury is formed, which occasions a fawn-coloured precipitate, when added even in a very minute portion to the nitro-muriat of palladium: this precipitate is a prussiat of palladium. Red oxyd of mercury was mixed with the blue earth in fine powder, and water being added to the mixture, was boiled in a sand-bath for more than half an hour, and constantly stirred during the time: when cool, the liquor was filtered and dropped into a nitro-muriatic solution of palladium, but no precipitate appeared. Experiments to ascertain the presence of Phosphoric Acid. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. When the native green phosphat of lead is melted before the flame of the blow-pipe on charcoal, it crystallizes, on cooling, into a polyhedral garnet-like kind of crystallized mass; so does the artificial phosphat of lead, made by adding phosphat of soda to nitrat or acetat of lead; in which case the phosphat of lead precipitates in a dense white powder, speedily and distinctly. These remarks have been made by Klaproth, in his Analysis of the Phosphated Lead Ores. When nitrat of lead, or acetat of lead, are added to any solution containing phosphoric acid, the solution of lead is instantly decomposed, and a phosphat of lead is formed. Thus, when phosphat of iron, made either directly by solution in phosphoric acid, or by precipitation by phosphat of soda, is dissolved even in small quantity in the nitric acid, this solution is immediately precipitated by any solution of lead: these facts were previously ascertained. Moreover, solutions of iron in phosphoric acid, were made both directly and by double decomposition, as by precipitating a solution of sulphat of iron by phosphat of soda. The phosphat of iron in both cases, when dried moderately, assumes a slight bluish tinge by exposure to the atmosphere: which may have led to the supposition of this blue stone being phosphat of iron. These previous experiments were made to ascertain the colour of artificial phosphat of iron. With these facts in view, a solution of the blue iron earth, or stone, was made in pure nitric acid, freed from muriatic acid by nitrat of silver, and from sulphuric acid by nitrat of baryta: precautions which were afterwards found unnecessary for this particular purpose, the common nitric acid of commerce answering sufficiently well. This nitrated solution of the substance under analysis, was mixed gradually with nitrat of lead, and subsequently in a distinct experiment with acetat of lead. In neither case was there any precipitate produced, as might have been expected to take place, had even a trace of phosphoric acid, combined or uncombined, existed in this nitric solution. Again, a considerable quantity of the substance in powder, dried, but not discoloured, was rubbed up with about 1-10th of its weight of lamp-black: in another experiment with 1-10th of sulphur; in a third experiment with 1-10th of a mixture of lamp-black and sulphur. The mixed powder was put into bottle-shaped crucibles, having clay stoppers, with a glass tube of about 1-16th of an inch diameter, passing through the stopper. The clay was burned to fit the aperture, and during the experiments the stoppers were also well luted and attended to. The mixtures were exposed to a gradual heat for half an hour, to dissipate the hygrometrical moisture, if any should remain; the stoppers constantly examined: the heat was gradually increased to a full red, at the close of an hour: during this time a lighted paper was very frequently applied to the orifice of the glass tubes whence the vapours from the blue earth issued, but there was no trace of any thing inflammable to be discovered. Nor was any, the slightest phosphorescence discovered, on dropping the powdered stone on red hot charcoal. Hence I conclude, 1st. That the hard blue earth of New Jersey is probably the same substance with the blue earth of Jamison and Werner, the fer azurè of Hauy, and the fer phosphate of Brochant and Brogniart; but it seems to differ somewhat from the smalt-blue fossil of the Vorau, analysed by Klaproth. 2d. That this blue earth of New Jersey, contains neither prussic or phosphoric acid. 3d. That it consists of sub-oxyd of iron, intimately united with about 1-10th of the earth of alum, and 24 per cent. of water, probably in chemical union. 4th. That it contains no perceptible quantity of silica, lime, magnesia, or the other earths. 5th. That its colour may be of vegetable origin, but I cannot venture any probable surmise concerning it. The crystallized earth of New Jersey, consisting of olive green crystals, upon a bluish green earthy stone, is very similar in its geological and chemical characters, to the blue earth just described; but as I propose a more perfect analysis of these crystals than I have yet made, I shall say no more about them at present. THOMAS COOPER. Observations on the treatment of the Venereal Disease, without Mercury. By G. J. GUTHRIE, ESQ. Deputy inspector of Military Hospitals, Surgeon to the Royal Westminster Infirmary for diseases of the Eye, Lecturer on Surgery, &c. [From the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, Vol. VIII. for 1817.] THERE are no diseases to which the male sex is so very ob-, noxious as those of the sexual organs, and there are none which have more occupied the attention of surgeons; yet there is not a subject in surgery of equal importance, on which less has been written since the time of Mr. Hunter. We find that those who have had the greatest opportunities of acquiring knowledge, have for the most part refrained from communicating to the public the results of their observations; and that this has arisen rather from the difficulty of the subject than from its being so throughly understood as to require no comment, will be immediately acknowledged by every one of discernment and experience. In offering a few observations on the treatment of diseases acquired through promiscuous intercourse, I wish I could think they would elucidate a subject beset with so many difficulties; but the more I consider in which way this may be accomplished, the greater I find the obstacles to be surmounted, except I could at once adopt the opinions of a French anonymous, but very ingenious author*, "that there is not, nor even was such a disease;" but to this opinion there are equally insurmountable facts to be *Sur la hon-existence de la Maladie Vénérienne. Paris, 1811. VOL. VIII. 2 S No. 31. |