Lexicon medicum, or, Medical dictionary : containing an explanation of the terms in anatomy, botany, chemistry, materia medica, midwifery, mineralogy, pharmacy, physiology, practice of physic, surgery, and the various branches of natural philosophy connected with medicine : selected, arranged, and compiled from the best authors / by Robert Hooper.

Robert Hooper

Date:: 1832

Credit: Lexicon medicum, or, Medical dictionary : containing an explanation of the terms in anatomy, botany, chemistry, materia medica, midwifery, mineralogy, pharmacy, physiology, practice of physic, surgery, and the various branches of natural philosophy connected with medicine : selected, arranged, and compiled from the best authors / by Robert Hooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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$colour Is producer!; and lead by sulphate of soda, hydrosulphurets, sulphuretted hydrogen, and gallic acid. None of these should produce any change on genuine vinegar. See Lead. Salts consisting of the several bases, united in definite proportions to acetic acid, are called acetates. I hey are characterized by the pungent smell of vine- gar, which they exhale on the affusion of sulphuric acid ; and by their yielding on distillation in a mode- rate red heat a very light, odorous, and combustible liquid called pyro-acetate (spirit) ; which see. They are all soluble in water; many of them so much so as to be uncrystallizable. About 30 different acetates have been formed, of which only a very few have been applied to the uses of life. The acetic acid unites with all the alkalies and most of the earths; and with these leases it forms compounds, some of which are crystallizable, and others have not yet been reduced to a regularity of figure The salts it forms are distinguished by their great solubility; their decomposition by fire, which carbonizes them; the spontaneous alteration of their solution ; and their decomposition by a great number of acids, which extricate from them the acetic acid in a concentrated state. It unites likewise with most of the metallic oxides. With barytes the saline mass formed by the acetic acid does not crystallize; but, when evaporated to dryness, it deliquesces by exposure to air. This mass is not decomposed by acid of arsenic. By spontaneous evaporation, however, it will crystallize in fine trans- parent prismatic needles, of a bitterish acid taste, which do not deliquesce when exposed to the air, but rather effloresce. ' With potassa this acid unites, and forms a deli- quescent salt scarcely crystallizable, called formerly foliated eartfi of tartar, and regenerated tartar. The solution of this salt, even in closely stopped vessels, is spontaneously decomposed: it deposites a thick, mucous, flocculent sediment, at first gray, and at length black; till at the end of a few months nothing remains in the liquor but carbonate of potassa, rendered impure by a little coaly oil. With soda it forms a crystallizable salt, which does not deliquesce. This ^alt has very improperly been called mineral foliated earth. According to the new nomenclature, it is acetate of soda. The salt formed by dissolving chalk or other calca- reous earth in distilled vinegar, formerly called salt of chalk, or fixed vegetable sal ammoniac, and by Bergman calx acetata, has a sharp bitter taste, appears in the form of crystals resembling somewhat ears of corn, which remain dry when, exposed to the air, unless the acid has been superabundant, in which case they deliquesce. Of the acetate of strontian little is known, but that it has a sweet taste, is very soluble, and is easily decomposed by a strong heat. The salt formed by uniting vinegar with ammonia, called by the various names of spirit of Mindercras, liquid sal ammoniac, acetous sal ammoniac, and by Bergman alkali volatile acetatam, is generally in a liquid state, and is commonly believed not to be crys- tallizable, as in distillation it passes entirely over into the receiver. It nevertheless may be reduced into the form of small needle-shaped crystals, when this liquor is evaporated to the consistence of a syrup. With magnesia the acetic acid unites, and after a perfect saturation, forms a viscid saline mass, like a solution of gum-arabic, which does not shoot into crystals, hut remains deliquescent, has a taste sweet- ish at first, and afterwards bitter, and is soluble in spirit of wine. The acid of this saJine mass may be separated by distillation without addition. Glucine is readily dissolved by acetic acid. This solution, Vauquelin informs us, does not crystallize; but is reduced by evaporation to a gummy substance, which slowly becomes dry and brittle; retaining a kind of ductility for a long time. It has a saccharine and pretty strongly astringent taste, in which that of vinegar, however, is distinguishable. Yttria dissolves readily in acetic acid, and the solu- tion yields by evaporation crystals of acetale of yttria. Aluminc, obtained by boiling alum with alkali, and edulcorated by digesting in an alkaline lixivium, is dissolved by distilled vinegar in a very inconsiderable quantity. ACE Acetate of zireone may be formed by pouring acetic acid on newly precipitated zireone. It lias an astringent taste. Vinegar dissolves the true gums, and partly the gum-resins, by means of digestion. Boerhaave observes, that vinegar by long boiling dissolves the flesh, cartilages, bones, and ligaments of animals.— Ure's Chemical dictionary. Moderately rectified pyrolignous acid has been re- commended for the preservation of animal food ; but the empyreumatic taint it communicates to bodies im- mersed in it, is not quite removed by their subsequent ebullition in water. See Acid, Pyrolignous. The utility of vinegar as a condimeut for preserving and seasoning both animal and vegetable substances in various articles of food is very generally known. It affords an agreeable beverage, when combined with water in the proportion of a table-spoonful of the former to half a pint of the latter. It is often employed as a medicine in inflammatory and putrid diseases, when more active remedies cannot be procured. Re- lief has likewise been obtained in hypochondriacal arid hysteric affections, in vomiting, fainting, and hiccough, by the application of vinegar to the mouth. If this fluid be poured into vessels and placed over the gentle heat of a lamp in the apartments of the sick, it greatly contributes to disperse foul or mephitic vapours, and consequently to purify the air. Its anticontagious powers are now little trusted to, but its odour is em- ployed to relieve nervous headache, fainting fits, or sickness occasioned by crowded rooms. As an external application, vinegar proves highly efficacious when joined with farinaceous substances, and applied as a cataplasm to sprained joints ; it also forms an eligible lotion for inflammations of the sur- face, when mixed with alcohol and water in about equal proportions. Applied to burns and scalds, it is said to be highly serviceable whether there is a loss of substance or not, and to quicken the exfoliation of ca- rious bone. (Gloucester Infirmary.) Mixed with an infusion of sage, or with water, it forms a popular and excellent gargle for an inflamed throat, also for an in- jection to moderate the fluor albus. Applied cold to the nose in cases of hemorrhage, also to the loins and abdomen in menorrhagia, particularly after parturi- tion, it is said to be very serviceable. An imprudent use of vinegar internally is not without considerable inconveniences. Large and frequent doses injure the stomach, coagulate the chyle, and produce not only leanness, but an atrophy. When taken to excess by females, to reduce a corpulent habit, tubercles in the lungs and a consumption have been the consequence. [ When any of the vinous liquors are exposed to the free access of atmospheric air, at a temperature of 80 to 85 degrees, they undergo a second fermentation, terminating in the production of a sour liquid, called vinegar. During this process a portion of the oxygen of the air is converted into carbonic acid ; hence, un- like vinous fermentation, the contact of the atmos- phere is necessary, and the most obvious phenomenon is the removal of carbon from the beer or wine. Vi- negar is usually obtained from malt liquor or cider, while wine is employed as its source in those countries where the grape is abundantly cultivated.— Webster's Manuel of Chemistry. Vinegar for ordinary use may also be made from sugar, molasses, raisins, or other fruits, or from the re- fuse of fruits, as follows: Take the skins of raisins after they have been used in making wine, and pour three times their own quantity of water upon them; stir them well about, and then set the cask In a warm place, also covered, and the liquor in a few weeks' time will become a sound vinegar, which drawn off from its sediments, put into another cask, and well bunged down, will be a good vinegar for the table.—Beastall's Useful Guide. A.] ACETTFICATION. {Acetificatio; from acetum, vinegar, and fio, to make.) The action or operation by which vineear is made. ACETOMETER. An instrument for estimating the strength of vinegars. See Acetic Acid. ACETO SA. (Frnm actsro, to be sour.) Sorrel. A genus of plants in some systems of botany. See Bume-x. ACETOSE'LEA. (From acetosa, sorrel: so called from the aciditv of its leaves.) Wood-sorrel. See Ozalis acctosella.$

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