Epsom salt

“ These earths are nearly insoluble in the vitriolic acid, and what part does unite with it, forms a selenitical salt, the most difficult of solution of all others, and of an astringent nature: whereas the Magnesia [d] united with the same acid, produces what is commonly called Epsom salt, easy of solution, and purgative to the bowels. The former, with the nitrous acid constitutes a calcareous nitre, incapable of crystallization; with the marine acid a calcareous muriatic salt ”

“ In particular diseases where there is considerable fever, or the attack of fever is apprehended, there is no purgative so beneficial as the Epsom Salts; in bad cases twenty four ounces may be given at a dose, and eight ounces of sulphur every six hours, until the purgative effect is produced. Linseed Oil is a good purgative, the dose is from a pint to a pint and a half. Common Salt is a very good purgative in mild cases, a pound dissolved in warm water is a dose; it should not be given when the animal labors with fever. ”

“ From this till the 20th, I gave him sundry medicines, but with little more effect than to ease him now and then: for the complaints always returned again in different manners and at uncertain times: but nothing extraordinary happened.
On the 20th, I gave him a dose of Epsom salt, which he had been used to take: it purged very well; but, immediately on its leaving off to work, his body struck out with great numbers of small red spots, without other inconvenience except a little extraordinary heat in the skin. ”

“ This increase of power has been shown by Liebig to result rather from the quantity of water than the salt. Pure water is greedily taken up by the absorbents; but water holding in solution saline matter is rejected by those vessels, and consequently passes off by the intestines.
Obs. Oxalic acid has occasionally been mistaken for Epsom salt, with fatal results. They may be readily distinguished from each other by the following characteristics:—
Magnesium, Tar′trate of. ”

“ Scholars on the foundation must be the sons of medical men, but in other respects the school is open. In the neighbourhood is the Durdans, a seat of the earl of Rosebery.
EPSOM SALTS, heptohydrated magnesium sulphate, MgSO4·7H2O, the magnesii sulphas of pharmacy (Ger. Bittersalz) . It occurs dissolved in sea water and in most mineral waters, especially in those at Epsom (from which place it takes its name) , Seidlitz, Saidschutz and Pullna. It also occurs in nature in fibrous excrescences, constituting the mineral epsomite or hair-salt ”

“ Even such of them as do give any variety of remedies are hardly more to be trusted. Whatever they give, their patients like big doses, and are not content without corresponding visible effects. Epsom salts, which are in great repute, are never given to a man in less quantities than two tablespoonfuls. On one occasion a poor woman came to me suffering from ague, and looking very dejected. I mixed this quantity of salts in a tumblerful of water, with a good dose of quinine, bidding her drink two-thirds of it, and give the remainder to her daughter, who evidently needed it as much as she did. ”

“ Art. XVI. Analysis of the Harrodsburg Salts.
Art. XVI. Analysis of the Harrodsburg Salts, by Edward D. Smith, M. D. Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in the South-Carolina College.
More than a year since I received a quantity of a white earthy substance, which was said to be obtained by the evaporation of certain mineral waters at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and there vended at a considerable price, under the name of Epsom salts. The respectable character who presented this powder to me, requested that I would make an analysis of it ”

“ It is also found associated with limestone, as in the Mammoth Caves, Kentucky, and with gypsum, as at Montmartre. Epsom salts crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, being isomorphous with the corresponding zinc and nickel sulphates, and also with magnesium chromate. Occasionally monoclinic crystals are obtained by crystallizing from a strong solution. It is used in the arts for weighting cotton fabrics, as a top-dressing for clover hay in agriculture, and in dyeing. ”

“ Their taste is bitter and unpleasant. So little are they affected by exposure to the air, that the Abbé Haüy kept some by him for more than twelve years without any sensible alteration.
These salts are much used in medicine, and are sometimes manufactured from the waters of Epsom (290) and Sedlitz (289) , but more frequently, and in much greater abundance, from sea-water.
The magnesia of the shops is prepared by dissolving Epsom salts in water, and adding to the solution half their weight of potash (205) . The substance that sinks to the bottom is magnesia ”

“ Physiology has been a boon to humanity and an inexhaustible field of research to the scientific.
In a chemical point of view there is no more important mineral constituent in the human body than the chloride of sodium, for it occurs nearly in every part of the system, both solid and fluid, in close and intimate relation with the organic compounds, and it materially influences their chemical and physical properties; for instance, the albumen partly owes its solubility to the presence of salt, the quantity of which causes the differences which it presents as regards its coagulation ”

“ Is it not a blessing to know that nature has munificently provided a means whereby these distressing evils may be checked and definitely eradicated by a daily use of such an enemy to, and destroyer of, disease as the chloride of sodium, universally known as common salt? ”

“ Sodium, on the other hand, stands in a different relationship to living structures. It is widely distributed, but in the higher animals, as in man, sodium salts are most abundant in the fluids of the body, notably in the plasma of the blood. Herbivorous animals have a strong liking for sodium chloride or common salt, but this is not true of carnivorous animals; indeed, the latter animals have a great299 dislike for salty articles of food. Vegetable products are all rich in potassium salts, whereas ordinary animal foods, such as meat, eggs, milk, and blood, are relatively poor in this element. ”

“ SALTS Of all salts found in the body, the most abundant and valuable is sodium chloride (NaCl) , common salt; it exists in all tissues, secretions, and fluids of the body, with the exception of enamel of the teeth. The amount found in food is not always sufficient; therefore salt is used as a condiment. It assists digestion, inasmuch as it furnishes chlorine for hydrochloric acid found in gastric juice. ”

“ Of course, the sodium chloride in the flesh of the herbivora and frugivora is obtained from the vegetable matter forming their food, and very few of them have the opportunity of obtaining it from salt-licks and mineral sources. They must have the power of storing up the sodium chloride from plants in sufficient quantity, whilst the potash salts pass away. There is no justification for saying that they are worse off by being deprived of salt. If the ape tribe can thrive without added salt why should not man? Bunge considers that a restriction to vegetable food causes a great desire for salt. ”

“ Precipitate the lime by oxalate of ammonia, and the magnesia by carbonate of ammonia and phosphoric acid. (Page 52.) Then evaporate the liquid thus treated to dryness. A quantity of common salt will remain: let this be exposed to a red heat; 0.4 of its weight indicate the sodium contained in the bulk of water employed; and 0.4 sodium are equivalent to 0.53 of soda.
It seems hardly requisite to mention some other substances that occasionally make their appearance in the waters used for domestic purposes. A fine divided sand is a common constituent, which is easily obtained in a separate state. ”

“ Magnesia, from being insoluble, or nearly so, in water, is all but tasteless, and has barely any alkaline reaction, yet it is a very strong alkaline base; 20.7 parts of it neutralize as much sulphuric acid as 47 of potash. A salt is not always a crystallizable substance, and vice versa. The progress of our chemical knowledge has therefore demanded a wider extension and application of the term salt, and it is not now confined merely to a combination of an acid and an alkali, but is conferred even on compounds consisting only of sulphur and a metal, which are termed sulphur salts. ”

“ As you walk along on top of them, you can smell a faint violet perfume from the salt. Thatch is put over the cones to protect them from the rain, and there they stand till some of the impurities drain away. This salt is not perfectly white, [Pg 98] because the workmen cannot help scraping up a little of the gray or reddish clay with it. Most of it is sold as it is, nevertheless, for many people have an absurd notion that the darker it is the purer it is. For those who wish to buy white salt it is sent to a refinery to be washed with pure water, then boiled down and dried. ”

“ In the old cliff dwellings are found peculiar little bags containing salt; and at the present time a certain amount of the mineral, when brought to the villages, is set aside as sacred and preserved in little bags almost identical with those found in the ancient dwellings.
Where men live on milk and raw or roasted flesh, sodium chloride is an unnecessary addition. Thus the Numidian nomads in the past did not, and the Bedouins of Hadramant of the present do not, eat salt with their food. On the other hand, a cereal, vegetable, and boiled meat diet calls for salt. ”

“ More or less sulphate of lime and chloride of magnesium are found in salt from whatever locality or source it may be derived. The purest rock salt is the best of all; next to that is sea salt, and then the average quality from brine springs; but the table shows that the “Onondaga factory filled salt” is as pure as the rock salt of Cheshire, England, which is one of the purest known. An impurity of 3 per cent. renders salt unfit for domestic purposes, especially if the impurity consist of chlorides of calcium and magnesium, particularly the former. ”

“ The hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice, which is so bountifully secreted by the glands of the stomach, of course drains the whole system of its salt, and especially does it draw the chloride of sodium from the blood, which contains 3·6 in 1000, being held in solution by the liquor-sanguinis.
Animal or nitrogenous food contains only a minimum of salt, which chiefly exists in the muscular tissue, its principal constituents being albumen and fibrine ”

“ The deposits, which are found at a considerable height above sea-level, are of great but undefined magnitude, as the lowest strata has been bored through for a thickness of 72 feet, without penetrating the formation. The rock salt here was acknowledged to be purer than any previously encountered in Cheshire, and the brine derived therefrom, containing 26·100 chloride sodium by weight, yields on evaporation an exceptionally high class of white salt. ”

“ Continue this about half as long again, or double the usual time given in the cookery-books for boiling a leg of mutton, and try the effect. It will be analogous to that of the egg cooked on the same principles, and appreciated accordingly.
The usual addition of salt to the water is very desirable. It has a threefold action: first, it directly acts on the superficial albumen with coagulating effect; second, it slightly raises the boiling-point of the water; and, third, by increasing the density of the water, the "exosmosis," or oozing out of the juices, is less active. ”

“ SALTPETRE The attention of the ancients was naturally attracted by the efflorescences which form on certain stones, on walls, and in caves and cellars; and the Hindus and nomad Arabs must have noticed the deflagration of at least one of them when a fire was lit on it. These efflorescences consist of various salts,—sulphate and carbonate of soda, chloride of sodium, saltpetre, &c.—but they are so similar in appearance and taste, the only two criteria known in primitive times,19 that early observers succeeded in discriminating only one of them, common salt, from the rest. ”

“ A very serious difficulty presents itself in the great thickness of many strata of salt; which, if regarded as the solid residuum of sea-water, must have necessarily required a proportionate volume of water, unless the seas of those distant periods contained a larger amount of saline ingredients than they do at the present time: an inference for which there are no reasonable grounds.
Wherever there are deposits of the chloride of sodium, they are almost always accompanied with layers and intercalations of gypsum ”

“ A method of promoting the preservation of fish by salt by the aid of sodium hypochlorite along with the salt has been patented. The original idea, it is understood, was to decompose the salt in sea water by electrolysis, sodium hypochlorite being formed. It was claimed that the sodium hypochlorite penetrates faster than ordinary salt. This substance contains some oxygen that may be given off to act as a sterilizing agent, and after the oxygen is given off ordinary salt or sodium chloride remains. ”

“ Particles of chloride of sodium in volcanic ejections were no explanation of the formation of huge deposits of rock-salt, and since it was realized that salt in large quantity can only be obtained from salt water, and that it cannot be got naturally from the sea, it became evident that what man does in isolating tracts of sea-water to produce salt by solar evaporation, must have been practised by nature on an extensive scale in all ages. ”