Oxymel

“ Oxymel is also most proper. Let them likewise use a drink made from honey, particularly when it begins to become acid; and such wines as are gently acid, and such articles of food as are attenuant without being heating, as capers, if taken with vinegar and honey, or vinegar and oil. When the Tensive species of lassitude takes place without exercise, it indicates that a plethora distends the solid parts of the body. If the fulness be occasioned by blood, it will be best to open a vein, or scarify the ankles. ”

“ When thus boiled, they are used for dropsy, as a diuretic, being taken in doses of three oboli, with oxymel: they are employed also in a similar manner for affections of the spleen, and of the stomach, when it is too weak to digest the food, provided no ulcerations have made their appearance; also for gripings of the bowels, jaundice, and inveterate cough, accompanied with asthma. ”

“ But if the discharge still continue, we must support with a gruel made from chondrus. But if we ascertain from the weakness of the pulse that the powers of the system are prostrated, it will be proper to give bread out of diluted wine, provided there be no inflammation of the stomach or liver. But should they be inflamed at the same time that the body is loaded with crude humours, the state of the patient is hopeless. If you perceive that the humours are thick, give oxymel always instead of honied water; if it is summer, the patient hot, and fond of cold drink, give him cold oxymel ”

“ Applied to the scalp it was a remedy for baldness; better if some dead and dried bees were ground up with it. It wonderfully promoted expectoration. It was also claimed that it would destroy worms if drunk in milk, because the worms took to it so greedily that they killed themselves by excess. Oxymels, too, had at one time a high repute. A compound oxymel, containing a number of aromatic herbs, was handed down from Mesué to the early pharmacopœias, and was esteemed as a stimulant of the liver and kidneys.
An oil of wax was known as the Celestial Medicine. ”

“ On the 30th ʒi tinct. cantharidum twice a day in pyrmont water, with pills of ammoniac, sal tartar. et extract. gentian. were substituted, but
On the 7th of December, from some symptoms of relapse, the oxymel was used as before, and continued to be taken until the 27th, in doses as large as could be dispensed with on account of the great nausea which attended its exhibition: The urine was made in the quantity of four or five pints each day, during the whole time; the quantity then drank being seldom more than three pints. ”

“ These are the remedies for such cases as are occasioned by corruption of the food, cold, or plethora. When a redundance of cold and viscid humours is the cause, give castor to the amount of three oboli to drink in oxycrate, and the same thing will be of use when applied externally to the skin, along with old Sicyonian oil. The vinegar of squills or oxymel may also be drunk with advantage. Retaining the breath is likewise of great use. ”

“ We have not confined the term oxyd to expressing the combinations of metals with oxygen, but have extended it to signify that first degree of oxygenation in all bodies, which, without converting them into acids, causes them to approach to the nature of salts. Thus, we give the name of oxyd of sulphur to that soft substance into which sulphur is converted by incipient combustion; and we call the yellow matter left by phosphorus, after combustion, by the name of oxyd of phosphorus. In the same manner, nitrous gas, which is azote in its first degree of oxygenation, is the oxyd of azote. ”

“ From the liquor remaining after the first cristallization of the oxalic acid we may obtain malic acid by refrigeration: This acid is more oxygenated than the oxalic; and, by a further oxygenation, the sugar is convertible into acetous acid, or vinegar.
The oxalic acid, combined with a small quantity of soda or potash, has the property, like the tartarous acid, of entering into a number of combinations without suffering decomposition: These combinations form triple salts, or neutral salts with double bases, which ought to have proper names. ”

“ Luciferase solution must always contain the oxidation product of luciferin, oxyluciferin. In presence of nascent H this is reduced to luciferin, and since the reaction of the medium is alkaline and luciferase is present this is oxidized with light production, when, by shaking, air is dissolved. The light can never become very bright except at the surface because of the deficiency of oxygen in the solution. It would seem, then, that the action of bacteria, yeast, muscle cells, etc., on oxyluciferin must be due not entirely to their acid reaction but to their reducing power as well. ”

“ One of the most marked of these effects is the uncommonly strong bleaching power of ozonized or active oxygen. When an essential oil that has altered so far as to contain ozonized oxygen—which is shown by its bleaching vegetable coloring matters such as the juice of cherries, red beets, tincture of litmus, etc., agitated with it—is cooled, we notice the separation from it of a usually crystalline, colorless, and odorless body called stearopten, while the remaining liquid part is called elæopten. Stearopten always contains oxygen, while elæopten still consists only of carbon and hydrogen. ”

“ Luciferin will also oxidize in the air spontaneously but no light is produced. It is easy to show that this spontaneous oxidation may be much more rapid than an oxidation with luciferase and yet light appears only in presence of the latter. If a concentrated solution of luciferin is kept near the boiling point it will be completely oxidized to oxyluciferin in four or five minutes. No light appears if air or even if pure oxygen is bubbled through it. ”

“ If the hydrogen, which by uniting with the radical forms the acid, be oxidized by nitric acid, 4 additional eqs. of oxygen are taken up by the radical, thus forming the oxyacid of the same radical. Instead of 1 eq. of hydrogen, the radical can unite with 1 eq. of chlorine, bromine, iodine, or even of a metal. These latter combinations are also formed when the hydracid is made to act on metallic oxides. With ammonia, on the contrary, the hydracid unites without undergoing any change. ”

“ Consequently we may obtain a partial formation of luciferin by adding an acid to oxyluciferin. Reduction of the H-ion concentration tends to shift the equilibrium in the opposite direction. Consequently, addition of alkali favors the oxidation of luciferin, and it is quite generally true that biological oxidations are favored by an alkaline reaction. In addition oxygen in alkaline medium has a higher oxidation potential than in neutral or acid media. ”

“ All of the oxygen acids may be treated as containing complex ions of oxygen and some other element, and their instability constants483 are factors in determining their chemical behavior. For instance, such is the case, most likely, for their behavior as oxidizing and reducing agents (see Chapter XVI) . The unsaturated condition of oxygen in water, (H2O±) , makes possible, also, the formation of complex ions, [ (H2O) xMe] +, etc., called oxonium ions and comparable with metal-ammonium ions. They form a most inviting field for rigorous investigation. ”

“ If we add some Al powder and dilute NaOH to an oxyluciferin solution, H is given off and luciferin is formed. As oxyluciferin cannot be formed by the addition of alkali alone we must have in this experiment a reduction of oxyluciferin in alkaline medium by the nascent H produced. Luciferin can also be formed by merely adding Al or Zn or Mg dust to an oxyluciferin solution. Methylene blue can also be readily reduced to its leuco-base by Zn dust or Al + NaOH.
Indeed, if one adds some Al or Zn or Mg powder to a solution of luciferase, light will appear whenever the solution is shaken. ”

“ But how much is added to our knowledge, when we are informed that oxygen enters into combination with almost every other element of matter? That in one combination it forms the deadly poison; in another, the refreshing cordial. That united with nitrogen in one proportion, it constitutes the air we breathe; in another, it forms the nitrous oxyde, a substance producing the most remarkable effects of exhilaration; in a third proportion, the nitrous oxyde, which, coming in contact with our lungs, produces instant death ”

“ If we assume that the oxidation of luciferin changes the molecule but slightly, we at once think of comparing the change luciferin ⇆ oxyluciferin with the change reduced hæmoglobin ⇆ oxyhæmoglobin. The condition is, however, not so simple as this, for oxyhæmoglobin will again give up its oxygen providing the partial pressure of oxygen is made sufficiently low, whereas oxyluciferin will not do this, at least in the dark. We can not reduce oxyluciferin solution by exhausting the oxygen with an air-pump. ”

“ If a man "whose talk is of oxen" should become an opium-eater, the probability is that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) —he will dream about oxen; whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher; and accordingly, that the phantasmagoria of his dreams (waking or sleeping, day-dreams or night-dreams) is suitable to one who in that character,
Humani nihil à se alienum putat. ”

“ Yes; but the term is not confined to metals, though chiefly applied to them. Any body whatever, that has combined with a certain quantity of oxygen, either by means of oxydation or combustion, is called an oxyd, and is said to be oxydated or oxygenated. ”

“ No process of solution is conceivable without oxydation. The dissolved body, while it obtains the aqueous nature, is taken up in the sense of oxygen. No solution occurs without oxygen, as well as no combustion is possible without water. The solvent character of water is based upon the preponderance of the oxygen over the hydrogen.
435. During every solution the two principles of water enter into a state of tension with each other, as the two aerial principles do in electricity. This tension is established by that which is to undergo solution ”

“ The oxyds of the animal kingdom are hitherto less known than those from the vegetable kingdom, and their number is as yet not at all determined. The red part of the blood, lymph, and most of the secretions, are true oxyds, under which point of view it is very important to consider them We are only acquainted with six animal acids, several of which, it is probable, approach very near each other in their nature, or, at least, differ only in a scarcely sensible degree. ”

“ I always do in the dénouement of bad cases—ether—nitrous oxyd. In employing the first two agents I secure rest, but I induce death nine cases out of ten. Nothing is better known to medical men than the intolerance of the system to chloroform or ether after opium. Nitrous oxyd I am still experimenting with, but its simple undiffused form is too powerful an agent to use with a patient who for many days must be hourly treated for persevering pain. So the opium-eater is left as entirely without anæsthetic as the usual practice leaves him without therapeutic means. ”

“ Gay Lussac and Thenard find a suboxide of sodium in the same way as that of potassium, and it is probably a compound of soda and sodium: the remarkable oxidation which produces soda is, I should imagine, the protoxide or one atom to one, as obtained by placing sodium in contact with water. A higher oxide is obtained as with potassium, by burning sodium in oxygen gas with a vivid heat. It resembles the yellow oxide of potassium in its appearance and properties. The degree of oxidation varies in the different experiments from 11⁄4 to 13⁄4 times the oxygen of soda. ”

“ The term oxydation or calcination is chiefly used to signify the process by which metals exposed to a certain degree of heat are converted into oxyds, by absorbing oxygen from the air. This combination takes place in consequence of oxygen possessing a greater affinity to metals, at a certain temperature, than to caloric, which [Pg 442] becomes disengaged in its free state; but, as this disengagement, when made in common air, is slow and progressive, it is scarcely evident to the senses. It is quite otherwise, however, when oxydation takes place in oxygen gas ”

“ It is a carbonat of lead. The mere oxyd of lead is called red lead. Litharge is another oxyd of lead, containing less oxygen. Almost all the metallic oxyds are used as paints. The various sorts of ochres consist chiefly of iron more or less oxydated. And it is a remarkable circumstance, that if you burn metals rapidly, the light or flame they emit during combustion partakes of the colours which the oxyd successively assumes.
CAROLINE.
How is that accounted for, Mrs. B.? For light, you know, does not proceed from the burning body, but from the decomposition of the oxygen gas? ”

“ The molecules of the altered haloid salts take up oxygen and form oxides. If a sensitive salt be briefly exposed to light and then treated with an oxidizing substance, such as potassium bichromate, potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, an image is not developed, but remains unaltered, showing that a change has been effected in the compound which under ordinary circumstances is developable. If such an oxidized salt be treated very cautiously with nascent hydrogen, the oxygen is withdrawn and the image is again capable of development. [5] ”