Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix.

  • Jonathan Pereira
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1109/1180 (page 1077)
    [§ AETHER ACETICUS. Acetic Ether. C4H50,C4H303 or C2H5C2H302. May be obtained by distilling a mixture of eight parts of dry acetate of soda, five parts of rectified spirit, and ten parts of sul- phuric acid; adding the distilled product to half its weight of chloride of calcium in a stoppered bottle ; letting them remain together for twenty-four hours, and then decanting and rectifying the ethereal liquid. Characters and Tests.—A colourless liquid with an agreeable ethereal odour. Specific gravity, 0*910. Boiling point 166°. Soluble in all proportions in rectified spirit and in ether. One part dissolves in 11 or 12 parts of water at 60°. Dose.—20 to 60 minims.] Several processes have been described for the preparation of acetic ether, which consist in heating alcohol and strong acetic acid together, and then distilling ; or in distilling a mixture of alcohol, acetic acid, and sulphuric acid ; or in adding a mixture of rectified spirit and sulphuric acid to an acetate and distilling. The last of these methods, which is that alluded to in the Pharmacopoeia, is considered the best. In operating by the other methods, the acetic ether produced is generally much mixed with simple ether and acetic acid. It is difficult to get acetic ether perfectly pure, and as met with in commerce it varies considerably in specific gravity and boiling point. Even those who have chemically inves- tigated the subject have arrived at very different results in these respects, and we find the specific gravity represented by Thenard as 0-866 ; by Miller and Pereira as 0*890 ; by Becker as 0'903 ; by Pierre as 0-906; by Kopp as 0*910 ; by the French Codex as 0*920; and by Gossmann as 0*932. Kopp's determination has been adopted in Watt's Chemical Dictionary, and also in the Phar- macopoeia. Acetic ether contributes to wine and vinegars part of their characteristic flavours, being generally present in those liquids in small quantities. As a separate article of the Materia Medica it has not been hitherto much used in medicine, but its agreeable flavour recommends it as a suitable adjunct to other medicines intended to act as stimulants and antispasmodics. It may also be used with advantage as a solvent and vehicle for the vesicating constituents of cantharides, for which purpose it is preferable to ether, or to a mixture of ether and acetic acid as ordered in the process for Liquor epispasticus. For further information on this article see page 94.