Part 51

Christopher Glaser, pharmacien at the court of Louis XIV, who subsequently had to leave France on suspicion of being implicated in the Brinvilliers poisonings, was the first to make nitrate of silver in sticks.

TIN.

Tin came into medical use in the middle ages, and acquired its position particularly as a vermifuge. For this purpose tin had a reputation only second to mercury. Several compounds of this metal were popular as medicines both official and as nostrums in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and tin did not drop out of medicinal employment until early in the nineteenth century.

The beautiful mosaic gold (aurum musivum), a pet product with many alchemists, was probably the first tin compound to be used in medicine. It was made by first combining tin and mercury into an amalgam, and then distilling this substance with sulphur and sal ammoniac. It is now known to be a bisulphide of tin. The mercury only facilitates the combination of the tin and the sulphur, and the sal ammoniac has the effect of regularising the temperature in the process. The product is a beautiful golden metal of crystalline structure and brilliant lustre. It was given in doses of from 4 to 20 grains; was sudorific and purgative; and was recommended in fevers, hysterical complaints, and venereal disorders. The subsequent preparations of tin which came to be used principally as vermifuges were the Calx Jovis (the binoxide), the sal Jovis (sometimes the nitrate and sometimes the chloride), and the Amalgama Jovis. These, however, were all ultimately superseded by the simple powder of tin given either with chalk, sugar, crabs’ eyes, or combined with honey or some conserve. The dose was very various with different practitioners. Some prescribed only a few grains, others gave up to a drachm, and Dr. Alston, an eminent Edinburgh physician in the eighteenth century, said its success depended on being administered in much larger doses. He recommended an ounce with 4 ounces of treacle to be given on an empty stomach. To be followed next day with ½ oz., and another ½ oz. the day after; the course to be wound up by a cathartic.

The Anti-hecticum Poterii was a combination of tin with iron and antimony, to which nitrate of potash was added. It was sudorific and was thought to be especially useful in the sweats of consumption and blood spitting. Flake’s Anti-hæmorrhoidal Ointment was an amalgam of tin made into an ointment with rose ointment, to which some red precipitate was added. Brugnatelli’s Poudre Vermifuge was a sulphide of tin. Spielman’s Vermifuge Electuary was simply tin filings and honey.

Oxide of tin is the basis of certain applications for the finger nails. As supplied by perfumers the pure oxide is coloured with carmine and perfumed with lavender. Piesse says pure oxide of tin is similarly used to polish tortoiseshell.

ZINC.

The earliest known description of zinc as a metal is found in the treatise on minerals by Paracelsus, and it is he who first designates the metal by the name familiar to us. Paracelsus says:

“There is another metal, zinc, which is in general unknown. It is a distinct metal of a different origin, though adulterated with many other metals. It can be melted, for it consists of three fluid principles, but it is not malleable. In its colour it is unlike all others, and does not grow in the same manner; but with its ultima materia I am as yet unacquainted, for it is almost as strange in its properties as argentum vivum.”

The alloy of zinc with copper which we call brass was known and much prized by the Roman metal workers, and they also knew the zinc earth, calamine, and used this in the production of brass. Who first separated the metal from the earth is unknown; so too is the original inventor of white vitriol (sulphate of zinc). Beckmann quotes authorities who ascribe this to Julius, Duke of Brunswick, about 1570. Beckmann says white vitriol was at first known as erzalaum, brass-alum, and later as gallitzenstein, a name which he thinks may have been derived from galls, as the vitriol and galls were for a long time the principal articles used for making ink and for dyeing. Green vitriol, he adds, was called green gallitzenstein. The true nature of several vitriols was not understood until 1728, when Geoffrey studied and explained them.

The ideas entertained of zinc by the chemists who studied it were curious. Albertus Magnus held that it was a compound with iron; Paracelsus leaned to the idea that it was copper in an altered form; Kunckel fancied it was congealed mercury; Schluttn thought it was tin rendered fragile by combination with some sulphur; Lemery supposed it was a form of bismuth; Stahl held that brass was a combination of copper with an earth and phlogiston; Libavius (1597) described zinc as a peculiar kind of tin. The metal he examined came from India.

The white oxide of zinc was originally known as pompholyx, which is Greek for a bubble or blister, nihil album, lana philosophica, and flores zinci. The unguentum diapompholygos, which was found in the pharmacopœias of the eighteenth century, and was a legacy from Myrepsus, was a compound of white lead and oxide of zinc in an ointment which contained also the juice of nightshade berries and frankincense. It was deemed to be a valuable application for malignant ulcers.

Oxide of zinc as an internal medicine was introduced by Gaubius, who was Professor of Medicine at Amsterdam about the middle of the eighteenth century. It had been known and used under the name of flowers of zinc from Glauber’s time. A shoemaker at Amsterdam, named Ludemann, sold a medicine for epilepsy which he called Luna fixata, for which he acquired some fame. Gaubius was interested in it and analysed it. He found it to be simply oxide of zinc, and though he did not endorse the particular medical claim put forward on its behalf he found it useful for spasms and to promote digestion.

END OF VOL. I

R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

FOOTNOTES:

Schelenz in “Geschichte der Pharmacie,” 1904, has collected a remarkable number of facts and documents illustrative of the development of pharmacy in Germany. He quotes a Nuremberg ordinance of 1350 which forbids physicians to be interested in the business of an apothecary, and requires apothecaries to be satisfied with moderate profits.

Dr. Monk gives a copy of the Latin minute in the books of the College referring to this curious recantation. The actual words which Geynes signed were these:--“Ego, Johannes Geynes, fateor Galenum in iis, quae proposui contra eum, non errasse.”

“Free Phosphorus in Medicine,” 1874.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious spelling, punctuation and printers’ errors have been silently corrected.

2. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been kept as in the original.

4. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r.