THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 



227 



For a direct process, iu which these difficulties 



are avoided, the author proposes the following: 



Take of— 



Arsenious acid, in powder 40 grains 



Potassium carbonate 40 grains 



Bromine ico grains 



Gold in leaf ..— 13.5 grains 



Distilled water, sufficient for i pint. 



The arsenious acid and potassium carbonate 

 are placed in a flask with four ounces of the 

 water, and boiled until solution is completed. 

 The gold leaf is introduced into a wide mouthed 

 bottle, twelve ounces of water added, and the 

 bromine run in, and the whole shaken until 

 the latter is dissolved, The solution previously 

 made is added, and the mixture shaken for a 

 few seconds. The liquid is transferred to a 

 flask or retort, and excess of bromine removed 

 by boiling. The solution is then allowed to 

 cool, and is subsequently diluted with distjlled 

 water to the required volume, and filtered. 

 Traces of silver chloride are formed during the 

 process, derived from impurities present in the 

 materials employed. The usual dose of the 

 preparation is from 5 to 10 minims. The max- 

 imum dose contains about 3^^ grain gold tri- 

 bromide, and a quantity of arsenium, in combi- 

 nation, equal to 2V grain arsenious acid. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Martindale said he had found that the 

 Clemen's solution which was kept by many 

 chemists could easily be used to convert the prep- 

 aration into a solution that would be of the same 

 strength as the preparation used in America. 

 The formula he had published was one that 

 could be used extemporaneously without any 

 difficulty. Mr. Wright got at more definite 

 results by manufacturing bromide of gold direct 

 from gold leaf. It probably took a little time. 



Mr. Wright said it took half an hour, and the 

 excess of bromide could be easily removed. 



Mr. Conroy said this paper was evidently 

 prepared with the idea of showing pharmacists 

 how to make their own preparations, but he 

 could assure the author that wholesale firms 

 would not be above learning from it. After 

 trying to make this preparation by the Ameri- 

 can method and being disappointed, he had 

 recourse to Mr. Martindale's ' Extra Pharma- 

 copceia,' and was soon put right. Still he 

 had no doubt that this direct process was supe- 

 rior, and that manufacturers would take ad- 

 vantage of it. 



Mr. Martin thought this formula would prob- 

 ably prove very useful, and they would all sym- 

 pathize with the efforts of everyone who sought 



to enable chemists to make their own prepara- 

 tions, and this was one of the great objects of 

 the Conference. 



Mr. MacEwan said the new United States 

 National Formulary had a recipe for this prep- 

 aration which differed materially from Mr. 

 Wright's, and it seemed a pity that the two 

 great Anglo-Saxon pharmaceutical associations 

 should not work on parallel lines. The Amer- 

 ican recipe started with arsenious acid and 

 bromine, and the solution was made by boiling^ 

 and to that tribromide of gold was added and a 

 solution made of that, which was then filtered, 

 and a certain amount of bromine added, the 

 excess of bromine being driven off^ by heat. The 

 resulting preparation contained ^V, grain of 

 arsenium per drachm. The great difierence in 

 Mr. Wright's preparation was that it was 

 strongly alkaline, whilst the American con- 

 tained no free alkali. The name also was 

 diff'erent — liquor arsenii et auri bromi, mean- 

 ing that it was a solution of arsenium and 

 bromide of gold. No doubt bromide of gold 

 existed in it, but there was no such thing as 

 arsenium bromide in aqueous solution. 



Mr. Wright regretted he had not seen the 

 new edition of the National Formulary to which 

 Mr. MacEwan referred, or he should have men- 

 tioned it in the paper. His solution was not 

 alkaline. 



Mr. MacEwan said the American formula 

 did not contain carbonate of potash or any 

 other alkali. 



Mr, Wright said there would be no free car- 

 bonate in his solution. He had not attempted 

 to determine its composition, but he should 

 imagine it was rather uncertain. There was 

 bromide of potassium, and if you added silver 

 nitrate solution to the liquor auri the bromide 

 came down first ; you got almost all the bromide 

 precipitated before the arseniate came down and 

 filtered that off". He judged there would be in 

 the solution tribromide of gold, arseniate of 

 potassium, bromide of potassium, and in addi- 

 tion there would probably be a trace of hypo- 

 bromide or bromate, perhaps both. On add- 

 ing gold leaf to the bromide solution the gold 

 leaf did not dissolve at once, proving that it 

 was necessary to have some oxidizing agent 

 present. If, after adding the gold leaf to the 

 bromide solution, you put in the solution first 

 made, the solution of the leaf was effected at 

 once. The precipitate was silver chloride, 

 which he was at first puzzled to account for, but 

 the silver evidently came from the gold and 

 the chlorine from the bromine. 



