Monthly retrospect of the medical sciences : January to December 1849 / edited by George E. Day, Alexander Fleming, W.T. Gairdner.

Date:
MDCCCXLIX [1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Monthly retrospect of the medical sciences : January to December 1849 / edited by George E. Day, Alexander Fleming, W.T. Gairdner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    190/262 (page 188)
    gins of the filter, produces so much cold as to congeal it into white silky scales, which keep a few instants.—Journ. de PAarw., July, and Chem. Gaz. Aug. 1849. 272.— On Glairine and Glairidine. By M. Bonjean. — Glairine is a vegeto- animal matter, produced at the sulphure¬ ous spring of Aix, in Savoy. According to M. Duby, who has examined it micro¬ scopically, it consists of extremely minute fragments of a plant of an extraordi¬ narily fine, close, undulating tissue, which is insoluble in water, and has the ap¬ pearance of an animal remain. Glairine is produced by the immediate action of the air on the sulphureous wa¬ ter, and is deposited on the pavement of the pumps. It retains a large quantity of water, which it does not lose by long exposure to the air; it is not entirely ex¬ pelled below 104° Fabr. Thus dried, it is quite colourless, completely inodorous, of a homy appearance, and is reduced to about one-tenth of its weight ; when wa¬ ter is added to it, it is rendered again mucilaginous, becomes nearly of its ori¬ ginal size, but remains inodorous. When dried, and thrown upon burning charcoal, it gives the smell of burnt horn, without any traces of sulphurous acid ; and the gases which it yields turn reddened lit¬ mus paper blue. Glairine contains very little nitrogen, and no iodine; it dissolves sparingly in water, alcohol, oil of turpentine, and rather more readily in concentrated acids, from which the alkalis precipitate it in bluish-white flocculi; heat in all cases in¬ creases the solvent power of the liquids ; it is quite insoluble in ether, which iso¬ lates perfectly the small quantity of sul¬ phur which it retains interposed between its molecules; it becomes rapidly of a more or less blackish-grey colour when taken from the water and exposed to the air; but it is sufficient to treat it with nitric or hydrochloric acid, bromine or chlorine, to restore its natural whiteness ; sulphuric acid, far from decolourising it, imparts to it the colour of wine-lees ; the concentrated alkalis render it green when heated, and the alkalis destroy it; when in water it has but very little odour, but, as soon as taken from it, it acquires a most disgusting smell, which is not dissi¬ pated by long exposure to the air, at least while it retains a little water ; nor is it got rid of by much washing with cold water, or by long boiling, although in the latter case the greater part of it disap¬ pears. Lastly, it becomes perfectly in¬ odorous by thorough drying in a stove, assumes a horny appearance, and is re¬ duced to about one-tenth of its weight. The author observed that when the sul¬ phureous waters above described become mixed with rain-water, another vegeto- animal matter appears, to which he has given the name of glairidine. The principal characters of this sub¬ stance are, that it is of a deep grey colour, instead of being colourless, like glairine ; it is inodorous, and remains so even when exposed to the air. Long exposure to the air does not alter its colour; but, if a glass bottle be immediately filled with it, it soon acquires a smell, which in a few days becomes as disagreeable as that of glairine taken from water. If it then be taken from the bottle and exposed to the air, it becomes quite inodorous, and dries perfectly in a few days ; on the contrary, it has been shown that glairine does not lose its interposed water till exposed to a heated stove. Glairidine is not decolour¬ ised either by an acid or by liquid chlo¬ rine. Like glairine, it renders hydro¬ chloric acid yellow, on account of the peroxide of iron which it contains. Wa¬ ter, alcohol, oil of turpentine, and the acids, dissolve a small quantity of it; it is insoluble in ether; it separates sulphur, but in so minute traces that to perceive them it is requisite to operate on a great quantity of the matter. The caustic al¬ kalis do not render it green, either cold or hot. If it be thrown on a filter, it re¬ tains a little water, and when afterwards dried on a stove, it loses only two-thirds of its weight. In this state, instead of having a horny appearance, like glairine, it presents a uniform, friable, solid mass, and does not swell in water. The water which runs through the filter is as in¬ odorous as the substance itself, and it contains a very small quantity of zoiio- dine. When decomposed in a glass tube, it exhales the odour of burnt horn, and yields gases which strongly restore the blue colour of reddened litmus. Lastly, glairidine yielded by analysis very evident traces of iodine, which, as already stated, glairine did not.—Jour, de Ph. et de Ch.; Phil. Mag.; and Phurm. Jour., August 1849. [We have given the above extracts, as some French writers have ascribed to these bodies the medicinal virtues of the springs containing them.] 273.— The Themial Springs of Leuker- bad. By Dn Forbes.—“ The hot springs which give to Leukerbad all its celebrity are more than twenty in number, and all rise either in the village or its immediate vicinity. By far the most considerable in point of size, surpassing, indeed, all the others put together, is the Lorenz(iuclle, which issues as a fountain in the small