Note-book of materia medica, pharmacology, and therapeutics / by R.E. Scoresby-Jackson.

Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Note-book of materia medica, pharmacology, and therapeutics / by R.E. Scoresby-Jackson. 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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    requires to be given in ever-increasing quantity to secure sleep. There are developed also great apathy and want of both the power and the will to attend to duty. Having regard to these facts, the administration of chloral ought to be recommended with great caution in the case of highly nervous patients, and especially when these have been addicted to over-indulgence in alcoholic drinks. The use of chloral by patients without medical supervision ought to be as far as possible prevented. The disagreeable symptoms dis- appear entirely on suspending the use of the drug, but treatment in an institution or other extreme measures are often necessary to enable the patient to break off the habit. It is incompatible with alkalis, as chloroform is formed. Impurities.—Inferior specimens have a very pungent smell from free chlorine, which gives a white precipitate with nitrate of silver; the colour is yellowish, and it leaves oily-looking stains on being pressed between two pieces of blotting-paper; it is only partially soluble in water, forming oily drops. All these point to decomposi- tion having taken place. Butyl-Chloral Hydras—Hydrate of Butyl - Chloral i—Hydrous Butyl-Chloral—Croton-Chloral Hydrate ^—C4H5CI3O.H2O.—Butyl- chloral produced by the action of dry chlorine gas on aldehyde cooled to a temperature of 14° F. (—10° C.), separated by fractional distil- lation, and converted into the solid hydrous butyl-chloral by the addition of water. Characters and Tests.—In pearly-white crystalline scales, having a pungent but not acid odour, resembling that of hydrous chloral, and an acrid nauseous taste. It fuses at about 172° F. (77°'8 C.) to a transparent liquid, which, in cooling, commences to solidify at about 160° F. (71°T C.). Soluble in about 50 parts of water, in its own weight of glycerine, and of rectified spirit, and nearly insoluble in chloroform. The aqueous solution is neutral, or but slightly acid,^ to litmus paper, and does not yield chloroform when heated with solution of potash or soda or with milk of lime.^ Dose.—5 to 15 grains. It is analogous in constitution to chloral hydrate. Butylic alco- hol is C4H10O, the aldehyde of which is C4HgO, and in butyl-chloral three chlorine atoms have replaced three of the hydrogen atoms of this body. ^ This name was erroneously given to it at first. ^ ]so decomposition with formation of hydrochloric acid. Chloral hydrate yields chloroform. Therapeutics.—Its action resembles that of chloral hydrate, but it