Part 41

The so-called natural sal ammoniac was for centuries brought from Egypt, and was supposed to have been mined in the earth or sand of that country. In 1716 the younger Geoffroy came to the conclusion that it must be a product of sublimation, and he read a paper to the French Academy giving his reasons for this opinion. Homberg and Lemery opposed this view with so much bitterness, however, that the paper was not printed. In 1719 M. Lemaire, French Consul at Cairo, sent to the Academy an account of the method by which sal ammoniac was produced in Egypt, and this report definitely confirmed the opinion which Geoffroy had formed. It was, said M. Lemaire, simply a salt sublimed from soot. The fuel used in Egypt was exclusively the dung of camels and other animals which had been dried by the sun. It consisted largely of sal ammoniac, and this was retained in the soot. For a long time an artificial sal ammoniac had been manufactured at Venice, and a commoner sort also came from Holland. These were reputed to be made from human or animal urine. The manufacture of sal ammoniac was commenced in London early in the eighteenth century by a Mr. Goodwin.

A formula for Sal Ammoniacum Factitium in Quincy’s Dispensatory (1724) is as follows:--Take of Urine lb. x.; of Sea-salt lb. ii.; of Wood soot lb. i.; boil these together in a mass, then put them in a subliming pot with a proper head, and there will rise up what forms these cakes. Dr. James (1764) states that at Newcastle one gallon of the bittern or liquor which drains from common salt whilst making, was mixed with 3 gallons of urine. The mixture was set aside for 48 hours to effervesce and subside. Afterwards the clear liquor was drawn off and evaporated in leaden vessels to crystallisation. The crystals were sublimed. A sal ammoniacum volatile was made by subliming sal ammoniac and salt of tartar (or lime or chalk) together. Sometimes some spices were put into the retort. This salt was used for smelling-bottles. Aqua regia was made by distilling sal ammoniac and saltpetre together.

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.