A treatise on the chemical, medicinal, and physiological properties of creosote : illustrated by experiments on the lower animals: with some considerations on the embalment of the Egyptians. Being the Harveian prize dissertation for 1836 / by John Rose Cormack.

Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the chemical, medicinal, and physiological properties of creosote : illustrated by experiments on the lower animals: with some considerations on the embalment of the Egyptians. Being the Harveian prize dissertation for 1836 / by John Rose Cormack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    when rubbed, it acquires a metallic lustre. It is insipid, inodorous, and not volatile, is almost inso- luble in water, but is so minutely divisible in that fluid as to pass through the filter along with it. In a few days however, it collects at the bottom, leaving the water quite colourless. It dissolves in the cold, without decomposition, in diluted sulphu- ric and hydro-chloric acids, but is insoluble in al- cohol and ether. Nitric acid decomposes it. It is dissolved very copiously by means of acetic acid. Its acid solution has a red colour, which is convert- ed into blue by the addition of an excess of alcali. Reichenbach states, that it is a more delicate test of acids and alcalis than turnsole. It has no ac- tion upon this substance. With acetate of lead, hydrochlorate of tin, and acetate of alumina, it strikes a beautiful deep blue colour, somewhat resembling that of the violet. When the hydrochlorate of tin, or acetate of alumina is used, the colour is so permanent as to resist the influence of light, soap and water, ammonia or wine. Reichenbach has not yet furnished us with the process by which he obtained this substance—a circumstance much to be regretted, as no other chemist seems to have procured it. Its presence in the oil of tar, however, can easily be shown by adding (after neutralizing the acid) a small quantity