446 History of Luminescence 



a frayed wax taper was then dipped in the liquid phosphorus and 

 withdrawn from the bottle it would light spontaneously. In 1786 

 in Italy a sulphur-tipped splint of wood was used to dip in phos- 

 phorus instead of a taper. The wood usually ignited on withdrawal. 

 Friction matches (lucifers) made of potassium chlorate, antimony 

 sulphide, and starch mixture, with gum as a binder on the tip of 

 the wood, were made in 1826 by John Walker of England. When 

 rubbed on sandpaper they would usually ignite, but replacement 

 of phosphorus for the antimony sulphide by Charles Sauria in 1830 

 was a great improvement and marked the successful beginning of 

 the match industry, for which phosphorus has been an important 

 material for many years, despite its poisonous action in the human 

 body.29 



MEDICAL USE 



It is not surprising to find that so remarkable a substance as phos- 

 phorus should be used in medicine. A remedy which emitted light 

 must have had a special appeal to the patient eager for relief. A 

 letter from J. C. Sturm in the Philosophical Collections, No. 2 

 (1681) stated: " This Chymist Dr. Kunkell prepares out of the 

 same condensed Light (which by his skill he knows how to Extract 

 out of any kind of Terrestrial Body whatsoever as if it were there 

 naturally placed) certain Pills about the bigness of Peas (to which 

 he ascribes very strange Conforting and Medicinal Virtues) . . . ." 



Somewhat later, in 1733, a Dr. Kramer, physician to the Elector 

 of Saxony, employed a preparation of phosphorus with great success 

 in epilepsies, insanity, and malignant fevers. He alleged the patients 

 recovered miraculously and many physicians adopted phosphorus as 

 a remedy. 



One of these was Hermann Friedrich Teichmeyer (1685-1744) , 

 a physicist as well as a physician, whose extended treatment of lumi- 

 nescences has been referred to in Chapter V. In his Institutiones 

 Materiae Medicae (Jena, 1737) , Teichmeyer noted that now phor- 

 phorus could be prepared in quantity as a result of the labors of 

 Hanckewitz, and recommended the material for all sorts of kidney 

 complaints, particularly for dissolving renal calculi. Concerning 

 phosphorus he wrote: " Nephritica autem sunt medicamenta reni- 

 bus dictata." 



Several theses appeared on the subject in the middle of the 

 eighteenth century, by Mentz (Menzius, 1751), F. J. Kikinger 

 (1759) , and Hartmann (1760) . Mentz held that phosphorus has 



** See M. F. Cross, Jr., A history of the match industry. Jour. Chem. Educ. 18: 116- 

 120. 277-282, 316-319, 380-384, 1941. 



