An exposure of the misrepresentations in the Philosophical Magazine and Annals, for December, 1830, in its attack upon the author's Elements of practical chemistry / by David Boswell Reid.

  • Reid D. B. (David Boswell), 1805-1863.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An exposure of the misrepresentations in the Philosophical Magazine and Annals, for December, 1830, in its attack upon the author's Elements of practical chemistry / by David Boswell Reid. 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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    2. Take a stout mercurial pneumatic jar from one to two indies in diameter, and from one to ten inches deep ; fill it with mercury and invert it over the shelf of the mercurial trough. Then introduce into it about a drachm of the colourless acid used in the preceding experiment, taking care to avoid the in- troduction of any air, and using for this purpose any of those numerous modifica- tions of the dropping tube that are now so much employeda common glass blowpipe with the point bent a little upwards does very well. In about a mi- nute in general, after the acid has risen to the top of the mercury m the jar and when it is of the usual specific gravity, red fumes begin to appear, and ie mercury slowly descends, leaving the jar quite full of the ruddy vapours, and affording another instance of their production when metals act upon rutiic acid, totallv independent of the action of the air. . . ., In his remarks on the test proposed by Liebig for detecting nitric acid (which, however, it has been proved very lately, and since my work was pu - fished, cannot be depended upon,* the reviewer states : i Quotation XI—“ We may also observe that Liebig’s process is not intended for the detea Ld nitric ,J, »Mr. Roid supposes, but « * sulphuric acid is to separate the nitric acid from its base, that it may a P P. 455. 4 i et Here the reviewer has entirely mistaken the nature of Liebigs piocess. Ht says tlmt it is not intended for tL detection of uncombined a d next line he tells us that the object of adding the sulphuric acid is to fe ^ nitric acid from its combination—to render it ■ uncombine , - < Y upon the indigo ; and does not appear to be capable of drawing the veryob vfous inference that nitric acid which has not to be detached from as, ? already free in the liquid, would produce the same effect. it U true that this test was more generally employed to detect a nitrate, be S2 S in knowledge ofcUstrgmay perhap^ mn ed. This, however, as every chem.st knows, » !'ot'^t ^ariot when ns< I Llebiff’s as I know from experiment, is as certain in its indications n nci with a liquid containing uncombined nitric acid, as in cases wieie acid is detached from abase by the action of sulphuric acid. I have hitherto spoken only of the purposes to quire then what Liebig himself volume of the Annales de f''m ambre produite par 1 action Liebig has the following words : solution, ie me suis sei “ Pour pouvoir decouvrir i acl%m^T‘f ^ de‘laquelle on pent deinont. rl’.me methode qui me parait nouvelle, ct a 1 aide de laquene i d une methode qui me pan ~ —• ***q,,il i • i • u,r nr O’Shauehnessy, in tbc Lancet of Maj lf.f See a paper on this subject by Ur- U Miaugnntssj, fa
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