Hydromel

“ But there are cases in which hydromel, strongly acid, does not promote expectoration, but renders it more viscid and thus does harm, and it is most apt to produce these bad effects in cases which are otherwise of a fatal character, when the patient is unable to cough or bring up the sputa. ”

“ Mixed with hydromel, it is recommended also for diseases of the kidneys, strangury, opisthotony, spasms, lumbago, dropsy, epilepsy, suppression or excess of the catamenia, and all maladies of the uterus. Applied with honey, it extracts foreign substances from the body, and, with salted axle-grease and cerate, it disperses scrofulous sores, imposthumes of the parotid glands, inflamed tumours, denudations of the bones, and fractures. Taken before drinking, it prevents the fumes of wine from rising to the head, and it arrests looseness of the bowels. ”

“ The tincture, made by dissolving the extract in spirit, I consider the best form of the drug for use in tetanic cases—or the resin may be made into an emulsion, by trituration with a little flour, carbonate of soda, and mucilage. The soda tends to dissolve the resin, and its use is in accordance with the precepts of the ancient Eastern writers, who prescribed hemp with alkaline substances, and used acids in various forms (such as oxymel and sorrel wine) to counteract its effects when taken in overdoses. ”

“ Treat essential oil of thyme with an equal volume of an aqueous solution of potash or soda, and shake several times to facilitate combination. The thymol dissolves, forming a soluble compound, whilst the thymene, a carbide of hydrogen, that accompanies it in the essence, does not combine with the alkali and separates. Filter the solution obtained and treat with an acid—hydrochloric acid, for example—which sets free the thymol. The product should be purified by washing, dried, and distilled. ”

“ The seeds are deprived of the fatty oil (26 per cent.) and treated with spirit of wine containing sulphuric acid, which takes out the hyoscyamine in the form of sulphate. The alcohol is then evaporated and tannic acid added; the precipitate thus obtained is mixed with lime and exhausted with alcohol. The hyoscyamine is again converted into a sulphate, the aqueous solution of which is then precipitated with carbonate of sodium, and the alkaloid dissolved by means of ether. ”

“ Oleic acid, for example, can be made to take up two atoms of hydrogen, and becomes converted into stearic acid; fish oils lose their smell and are turned into a hard odourless tallow. In France, the United States, and Germany, large quantities of butter substitutes and lard substitutes are made in this way. The hydrogenation is effected by spraying the oil, and compressing it with hydrogen in the presence of nickel, under suitable degrees of temperature and pressure. ”

“ The smell of the medicine too is emitted from the whole body. The remedies in such cases, after rejecting the substance taken by vomiting with oil, and evacuating downwards by a stimulant clyster, are oxymel drank with salts, or honey with warm rose-oil, and much undiluted wine with wormwood and cinnamon, and warm vinegar by itself, and natron with water, and marjoram with lye, the seed of rue and pepper given with castor, and oxymel, savory, or the decoction of marjoram with wine. ”

“ As found in commerce, thymol consists of irregular broken crystals, nearly transparent and colourless; the taste is burning and aromatic, sp. gr. 1·028, but lighter than water when fused; its melting point is about 44° C. When once completely fused and allowed to cool to the ordinary temperature, it will maintain itself in the fluid condition for several days, but the contact of a crystal will at once cause it to crystallise. It is freely soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, benzol, carbon bisulphide, fats, and oils, and but sparingly in water and glycerin. ”

“ Thymol, C6H3· (CH3) · (C3H7) ·OH, in oil of thyme, and carvacrol, its isomer, in oil of hops, are familiar examples.
Coumarin, the anhydride of cinnamic acid,; is an example of an acid substance which is classed as an essential oil, even though it is a solid at ordinary temperatures. It has an odor and flavor similar to that of vanillin, the essential flavoring material of the vanilla bean, and is often used as a substitute for the latter in the preparation of artificial flavoring extracts. ”

“ All rich vegetable Juices, as Treacle, Honey, &c. which either want a natural Acid, have been deprived of it, or contain it in too small a Quantity, will be greatly improved by adding, at the Beginning of the Operation, a small Quantity of the vegetable or fine mineral Acids; as Oil of Sulphur, Glauber’s Spirit of Salt, Juice of Lemons, or an aqueous Solution of Tartar. These Additions will either give, or greatly improve the vinous Acidity of the Subject, but not increase the Quantity of the Spirit, 21 that Intention being performed by Aromatics and Oils. ”

“ When ground-nut oil is treated with hyponitric acid, which may be most conveniently evolved by heating nitric acid with a little starch, a solid mass is obtained, which yields by crystallization from alcohol Elaïdic and Gæidinic acids, the former isomeric with oleic, the latter with hypogæic acid.
Production and Commerce—The pods are exported on an immense and ever increasing scale from the West Coast of Africa. ”

“ The alcohol used for the tooth and mouth-waters—more correctly tinctures—should be perfectly free from fusel oil, and of 95 to 96 per cent. strength. The best qualities of volatile oils should be taken, and the tinctures prepared with the greatest care.
The dentifrices for preventing caries, among which the thymol preparations are the most prominent, deserve special attention. The most celebrated physicians have long since recognized thymol as an antiseptic, it being much used in hospitals, and is frequently preferred to carbolic acid. ”

“ First, at least three earthy salts-the sulphates of lime, alumina, and potassa. Second, two organic and one simpler acid—acetic (absolute vinegar) , meconic (one of the most powerful irritants which can be applied to the intestines through the bile) , and sulphuric. All these exist uncombined in the gum, and free to work their will on the mucous tissues.
A green extractive matter, which comes in all vegetal bodies developed under sunlight, next deserves a place by itself, because it is one of the few organic bodies of which no rational analysis has ever been pretended. ”

“ This should be well stirred and allowed to cool, and then bottled in order to prevent it from giving off the hydrate and recovering the carbonic acid from the atmosphere. The last is detrimental to its use with bromine, and is one cause of the complaint that “it will not take bromine.” The hydrate of lime should, not be dried over a heat, as has been supposed by many, for in that case the hydrogen is expelled and it returns to a carbonate. It is advisable to cool it in a damp place like a ground cellar. Much of the lime in our market will not, except it be quite damp, combine with the bromine. ”

“ Uses—Oil of thyme is an efficient external stimulant, and is sometimes employed as a liniment. Its chief consumption is in veterinary medicine. Thymol has been proposed as a disinfectant in the place of carbolic acid, in cases in which the odour of the latter is objectionable. The herb is not used in modern English medicine, but is often employed on the Continent. ”

“ Properties and uses. Hydriodic acid resembles the corresponding acids of chlorine and bromine in physical properties, being a strongly fuming, colorless gas, readily soluble in water. Under standard conditions 1 volume of water dissolves about 460 volumes of the gas. It is, however, more unstable than either hydrochloric or hydrobromic acids, and on exposure to the air it gradually decomposes in accordance with the equation
2HI + O = H2O + 2I.
Owing to the slight affinity between iodine and hydrogen the acid easily gives up its hydrogen and is therefore a strong reducing agent. ”

“ When acids are brought in contact with certain metals, the metals dissolve and set free the hydrogen [Pg 31] of the acid. Although this reaction is a quite general one, it has been found most convenient in preparing hydrogen by this method to use either zinc or iron as the metal and either hydrochloric or sulphuric acid as the acid. Hydrochloric acid is a compound consisting of 2.77% hydrogen and 97.23% chlorine, while sulphuric acid consists of 2.05% hydrogen, 32.70% sulphur, and 65.25% oxygen. ”

“ Aniline colours may be adapted for oil painting by dissolving them in the strongest alcohol, saturating the solution with Dammar resin, filtering the tincture, and pouring the filtrate either on pure water or solution of common salt, stirring well all [248] the time. The water or brine solution must be at least twenty times the bulk of the tincture. The colour after being collected on a filter, washed, and dried, can be ground with linseed oil, poppy oil, or oil varnishes. ”

“ It has been found that certain acids, certain salts, and certain compounds containing only two elements—of which one is a metal—have a tendency to split up, or resolve themselves into their several constituents, when exposed to the action of light. On the other hand, chlorine, bromine, and iodine exhibit, under the same conditions, an exalted affinity for the hydrogen of organic matters. ”

“ This always operates when the proportion contained in the original ingredients is greater than that which the products can dispose of; that is to say, whenever the capacity of the new compound for water is less than that of the original ingredients. By previously driving off this water by heat, we shall of course avoid such a source of solution, and no liquefaction can ensue. Thus, if recently burnt quick-lime be triturated with calomel, the resulting mixture will be white, shewing that no decomposition can have arisen, but add a few drops of water, and it instantly assumes a dark aspect. ”

“ As the colour is only loosely applied to the surface by means of a weak solution of size, it is easily brushed off, and may so impregnate the air of a room as to produce injurious effects on those who inhabit the apartment. By fermentation of the starch paste used for fastening the paper to the walls, nascent hydrogen is liberated, and, combining with the arsenic to form arseniuretted hydrogen, passes into the air of the room and is inhaled. ”

“ When one of the products of hydrolysis is nearly insoluble in water the solution will become saturated with it as soon as a very little has been formed. All in excess of this will precipitate, and the reaction will go on until the acid set free increases sufficiently to bring about an equilibrium. Thus a considerable amount of bismuth and antimony hydroxides are precipitated when water is added to the chlorides of these elements. The greater the dilution the more hydroxide precipitates. The addition of hydrochloric acid in considerable quantity will, however, redissolve the precipitate. ”

“ Among compounds, especially in organic chemistry, many cases occur in which several different bodies have precisely the same elementary composition. For instance, the essential oils of rose, bergamot, orange, lemon, lavender, turpentine, rosemary, nutmegs, myrtle, peppermint, etc., unlike as they may be in outward properties, are all composed of carbon and hydrogen in exactly the same percentages. ”

“ Graham named the solids formed by the setting or coagulation of these liquids hydrogels. Solutions of colloids in solvents such as water and alcohol seem to be divisible into two classes. Both mix with warm water in all proportions, and will solidify in certain conditions. One class, represented by gelatin, will redissolve on warming or diluting, while the other class, containing such substances as silica, albumen, and metallic, hydrosulphides, will solidify on heating or on the addition of electrolytes to form a solid “gel” which cannot be redissolved. ”

“ To secure this concentration of hydrogen-ion, some hydrochloric acid is added to solutions, from which hydrogen sulphide is expected to precipitate none but sulphides of the copper and arsenic groups—and, as a rule, the purpose is accomplished, as desired. It is evident, however, that if a solution contains an acetate, say sodium acetate, or the salt of any other weak acid, e.g. a borate or a phosphate, the addition of hydrochloric acid will result, at least at first, in the liberation of the weaker acid and will not produce the excess of hydrogen-ion, required for the analysis. ”

“ Of the metals, only a very few combine with hydrogen (for example, sodium) , and give substances which are easily decomposed. Of the non-metals, the halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine) most easily form hydrogen compounds; of these the hydrogen compound of chlorine, and still more that of fluorine, is stable, whilst those of bromine and iodine are easily decomposed, especially the latter. The other non-metals—for instance, sulphur, carbon, and phosphorus—give hydrogen compounds of different composition and properties, but they are all less stable than water. ”

“ Let us now take the case of the production of an aniline colour, and let us try to discover what aniline is, and how formed. I pointed to benzene or benzol in the table as a hydrocarbon, C6H6, which forms a principal colour-producing constituent of coal-tar. If you desire to produce chemical appetite in benzene, you must rob it of some of its hydrogen. ”

“ P. Hoglan has made experiments toward ascertaining whether calomel is liable to decomposition in the human system, with the production of corrosive sublimate. He has found that calomel may be slowly decomposed and corrosive sublimate formed by the action of water at the temperature of the body, and that the change is accelerated by the presence of citric acid, sodium chloride, or sugar. ”