Dispensatory of the United States. 159 



" While we wish to retain arsenic as a potent remedy in the hands 

 of the judicious practitioner, we should be glad to find the public 

 authorities in the United States subjecting the sale of this poison to 

 strict regulations, under heavy penalties for their infraction. Speak- 

 ing of the practice in Europe, Berzelius remarks, "Le commerce 

 de l'acide arsenieux est toujours soumis a une surveillance severe, et 

 l'achat n'en est permis qu'a ceux, qui ont donne des preuves legales 

 qu'il leur est indispensable dans l'exercise de leur etat. A Pexcep- 

 tion de ces cas, Pacheteur et le vendeur sont soumis a une responsi- 

 bility tres severe."* 



To this succeeds an account of the diseases in which arsenic has 

 been exhibited with the greatest advantage, — its properties as a poi- 

 son, the most appropriate antidotes, and the best means of detecting 

 its presence. The authors avail themselves, among other authorities, 

 of the late work of Dr. Christison, which we regard as the most wor- 

 thy of confidence on this difficult point of chemical inquiry. 



In their account of Oxalic acid, we have an elaborate statement of 

 its preparation, its properties, physical, medical and toxicological, with 

 the appropriate remedies. " From the composition of oxalic acid, 

 as given above, (say the authors,) it is plain that this acid corresponds 

 in composition to carbonic acid and oxide, taken together, and is, 

 therefore, intermediate in the quantity of oxygen which it contains 

 between this acid and oxide. Notwithstanding it contains less oxy- 

 gen than carbonic acid, it is incomparably a stronger acid, which cir- 

 cumstance may be accounted for by supposing some peculiarity in 

 the mode in which its constituents are combined. The composition 

 of the acid not only corresponds with the united constituents of car- 

 bonic acid and oxide, but there is reason to believe that these two 

 compounds are actually its proximate constituents; for, if it be treat- 

 ed with strong sulphuric acid, the whole of the water will be abstract- 

 ed, and the elements of the dry oxalic acid will be instantly resolved 

 into equal volumes of carbonic acid and carbonic oxide. Oxalic acid 

 seems, therefore, to require one equivalent of water as a bond of 

 union between its elements, without which they arrange themselves 

 in a new binary order." 



Water, one of the most important articles of the materia medica, 

 is altogether omitted in the British pharmacopoeias, but most properly 

 introduced into that of the United States. Under the head of Aqua, 



* Traitfe de Chiniie, II, 431. Paris, 1830. 



