A dissertation on quick-lime and lime-water ... / [Charles Alston].

  • Charles Alston
Date:
1752
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on quick-lime and lime-water ... / [Charles Alston]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/60 (page 15)
    Salt, nor on adual Fire fixed in it; nor on any more adive or more volatile Matter than is the Quick-lime itfelf; but are the necefiary Confequence of the Change made on its Parts by the Fire. For the better un- derftanding the Nature of this Subftance, it is not amifs further to notice, 1. That Quick-lime is too acrid to be tailed; but if fufiiciently weakened or diluted, its Taile is much akin to that of lixivial and urinous Salts ; it has no Smell, un- lefs mixed with amnioniacal or animal Salts. Moill- ened, and applied to the Skin, it inflames and corrodes it; yet the Skins of dead Animals ileeped feveral Days in Lime-pits, are not corroded, but only freed of the Hair* and adhering Fat. One of the Ways of preferving Birds recommended by the very learned and curious Mr Reaumur^ is by fluffing and covering them, either with unflaked or flaked Lime (p). Hence not only the Tafle and Smell of Quick-lime feems to be owing more to the Change it makes on animal Salts, than to the Subftance of the Calx vive, but even its Corrofion alfo. Corrojio ‘viole?ita (fays Boerhaa^e) qiue contingit in corpore mi^jentis^ a cake ‘vpva ilk applicata, magis pendet ah igneis Jalhiis fpiritihus, quos calx njkja parit de fale pri- us non acrif quam ah ipfo corpore calcis rodente (q). 2. Quick-lime, whether unflaked or flaked, makes an Ebullition, or efiervefees with, and deflroys vege¬ table as well as mineral Acids: And I have once and again obferved, that flaked Lime diifolved in Spirit of Vinegar difeovered, if I may ufe that Phrafe, a notable Propenfity to a Kind of Vegetation, {hooting into pret¬ ty curious Figures, very white, not a little refembling Ibme Molfes, and making the Glafs in which they grew, appear like a little artificial Grotto. 3. Quick-lime is a very powerful Menflruum, difibl- vingall Sorts of Oil, Greafe, Gums, Rofines, Brimflone, animal calculous Concretions, dffc. fome of which can¬ not be diifolved by lixivial Salts. Rafura cafei (fays CPJ Phil. Tranf. N 487. p. 313^ fqj Cbcm. 2. p. 315. ikin