'802 Mr. G. O. Reeson the Presence of Titanium in the Blood, 



washed with distilled water, dried, and heated to redness in a 

 platinum crucible ; it became of a dark colour, and when cold 

 had a distinct reddish hue, owing, doubtless, to a portion of 

 phosphate of iron in admixture, as that substance does not 

 redissolve with the dried chloride. The mass was therefore 

 boiled in aqua regia, when a light coloured powder was left 

 undissolved : this, on being examined before the blowpipe on 

 a platinum support, gave a yellow bead (becoming colourless 

 when cold) in the outer flame ; and a yellow bead, becoming 

 reddish while cooling, and purple inclining to blue when 

 cold, if the inner flame was directed on it. 



A second portion of incinerated blood was similarly treated, 

 excepting that the dried chloride was (as several digestions 

 with aqua regia were had recourse to) each time washed away 

 from the mass in the vessel used for the digestions. By this 

 means a residual mass was procured, of a white colour inclin- 

 ing to gray; this was fused with carbonate of soda, which 

 produced a yellow colour when heated, becoming nearly white 

 when cold. Distilled water was boiled on the fused mass, 

 when a light flocculent white precipitate was seen floating in 

 the liquor, and a heavier fawn-coloured powder (which gave 

 the reactions of titanic acid before the blowpipe) appeared at 

 the bottom of the vessel. The flocculent precipitate was col- 

 lected and dissolved in cold dilute muriatic acid : the solution 

 gave a dark green coloured precipitate when neutralized with 

 ammonia and tested with hydrosulphuret of ammonia, and a 

 reddish brown precipitate with infusion of galls; the sul- 

 phuret when collected and ignited behaved as titanic acid 

 before the blowpipe. In every specimen I have examined, an 

 insoluble residue has been observable, though strong nitro- 

 muriatic acid has been used as a solvent : this insoluble matter 

 in every instance has been of a white or dingy white colour, 

 becoming yellow when fused with alkaline carbonate, but not 

 exhibiting that phaenomenon when heated alone to the same 

 extent as the titanic acid of the mineral kingdom. As I have 

 not yet made any quantitative analysis of the incinerated 

 blood, I cannot say that the iron exists as titanate in that sub- 

 stance, though titanic acid be present; but its behaviour 

 would seem to indicate the necessity of such being the case. 

 I have only to add, that a recent communication regarding 

 the existence of titanic acid in Hessian crucibles can in no 

 way interfere with any of my observations, as the whole of 

 the crucible experiments I have detailed were conducted in 

 platinum vessels. 

 Guy's Hospital, Feb. 12, 1835. 



