A manual of pharmacy / by William Thomas Brande.

Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of pharmacy / by William Thomas Brande. 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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    AMMONITE MURIAS — Muriate of Ammonia. — We have little to say of this salt as an abstract article of the Ma- teria Medica, but its uses in the pharmaceutical laboratory are numerous and important. It consists, exclusive of water of crystallisation, of 17 ammonia united to 37 muriatic acid, or per cent of 31.5 ammonia and 68.5 muriatic acid, proportions corresponding to equal volumes of muriatic and ammoniacal gases, which upon mixture are entirely condensed into solid muriate of ammonia. The manufacture of sal ammoniac is now extensively carried on in this country. Refuse animal matters, chiefly bones from which fat and glue have been extracted, are subjected to destructive distillation. The ammoniacal liquor which they afford is saturated with sulphuric acid, and the sulphate of ammonia thus obtained decomposed by mixture with com- mon salt and sublimation : cakes of muriate of ammonia, having the shape of the subliming vessel, are thus obtained. They should be semi-transparent, and colourless, but are often tinged bi’own by iron. Three parts of water at 60° dissolve 1 part of powdered sal ammoniac, and at 212° water takes up at least its own weight, part of which it again deposits on cooling, in dendritic crystals. Muriate of ammonia is now never used internally; dis- solved in lotions it forms a good stimulating discutient, and if mixed with its weight of powdered nitre and dissolved in 6 or 8 parts of water, it produces a very cold lotion, which may sometimes be conveniently used as a substitute for ice. AMYGDALA AMARA 1 rr . . r , , DULCIS $ Varieties oj the Amygdatus com- munis— Bitter and Sweet Almonds. — Both these kernels agree in containing albumen, mucilage, and a considerable proportion of a bland, insipid, and inert oil (amounting to between 45 and 50 per cent), easily obtained by expression; but to these ingredients there is superadded in the bitter almond a principle which gives it its peculiar flavour, and which may be obtained by distillation with water; it then appears a volatile oil, generally heavier than water, having the concentrated odour of the bitter almond, and partaking
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