837 



SOAP, MEDICAL USES OF. 



SOCAGE. 



638 



When the duty on hard soap was 3d. per lb., the selling price averaged 

 about 6rf., out of which another Jrf. was absorbed in duties on the 

 tallow and other substances used in the manufacture. The 3d. duty, 

 as has been stated, was reduced to l^d. in 1833 ; and in 1853 the duty 

 was wholly repealed. In 1852, the last year for which official returns 

 are obtainable, rather more than 200,000,000 Ibs. of soap were made in 

 the United Kingdom ; of which the largest items were London and 

 vicinity, 54,000,000 Ibs. ; Liverpool and vicinity, 47,000,000 Ibs. ; 

 Glasgow and vicinity, 16,000,000 Ibs. The export of soap is not large ; 

 for the three years, 1858, 1859, 1860, it varied from 160,000 Ibs. to 

 190,000 Ibs. 



The increasing use of palm oil is perhaps the chief commercial 

 novelty in the soap manufacture. 



SOAP, Medical I'tes of. In pharmacy and medicine the term soap 

 ia applied to combinations not only of oily and fatty matters with- the 

 alkalies soda or potash, but also with the volatile alkali (ammonia), lime 

 (an alkaline earth), and metallic oxides, especially oxide of lead ; like- 

 wise to solutions of resins in liquid potash, such as guaiacin [GuAiA- 

 CUM], called therefore Sapo yuaiacinus. The combinations of oils with 

 ammonia or lime, being very thin, are generally termed liniments ; the 

 common one of hartshorn with oil is an example of the former, while 

 oil and lime-water constitute the common application to burns termed 

 Can-on oil, from its frequent employment in the great iron-works at 

 that place. The combination of oil with oxide of lead is generally termed 

 a planter. Some combinations of a volatile or fixed oil with an acid 

 are sometimes called soaps, such as that of oil of turpentine with hydro- 

 chloric acid (artificial camphor), or of almond oil with sulphuric acid 

 (Sapo acidtu) : but these are scarcely entitled to be so regarded. Among 

 continental pharmaceutists, many cerates and mixtures of metallic 

 salts with common soap are termed soaps, but they are more correctly 

 called plasters. 



Of hard soaps, the fine kinds are made with soda and the purer 

 vegetable oils, and the inferior kinds with animal oils or the coarser 

 vegetable oils or resins. White soda soap is prepared with caustic 

 soda and olive oil (in Spain) or with almond oil (in France). In its 

 purest state it is called medicinal soap ; in a less pure state, it is called 

 Alicant, Venice, or Spanish soap. The Castile or marbled soap has 

 this appearance communicated to it by sulphate of iron and red oxide 

 of iron being added and stirred through it when the soap is nearly made. 

 These are impurities which render it less fit for medical use in many cases 

 than the white soap. When properly prepared, white soap should neither 

 make an oily mark on paper nor have a burning alkaline taste. It 

 should be perfectly soluble in pure water and in alcohol. [SOAP-TEST.] 

 When an alcoholic solution ia evaporated, the residuum constitutes 

 transparent soap. 



White soda soap is the only one which should be used internally. 

 It is chiefly employed to form pills, which are gently aperient and 

 antacid ; their power in this latter respect is greatly increased by the 

 addition of exsiccated carbonate of soda : this combination ia of great 

 utility in the treatment of gouty and calculous disorders, when an 

 alkali is indicated. In other cases it ia used to prevent the pills 

 becoming hard and insoluble ; such as compound rhubarb pills. White 

 soap furnishes a ready antidote to the strong mineral acids, in canes of 

 poisoning by any of these. 



Soft aoap in directed by the London Pharmacopoeia to be made with 

 potash and olive oil only, but this order ia seldom complied with. The 

 soft aoap, in which both soda and potash are used, is made with olive 

 and other oils and tallow. It is employed only to form the compound 

 sulphur ointment. Soft soap ia of great service in many cutaneous 

 diseases, several ef which, when in a mild form, may be cured by it 

 alone. It may be rendered still more useful by the addition of sulphur 

 or sulphuret of potash (liver of sulphur). In the treatment of scabies, 

 porrigo (ring-worm), and such diseases, this application is far superior 

 to the ointments and other greasy compounds commonly employed, 

 which increase the filth or uncleanness by which the disease is aggra- 

 vated. It ia also much cheaper. Many other soaps are vended, 

 pretending to special qualities, such as glycerine soap, tar sonp, &c. 

 Soap formed of cocoa-nut oil has the great advantage of being soluble 

 in skit water, and so can be used at nea. 



SOAP-TEST. A solution of white curd soap in proof spirit; it ia 

 used in ascertaining the amount of hardness of waters. 



The action of hard water upon soap has already been alluded to. 

 I'M, carttmate of lime.} By using a solution of soap of known 

 strength, and adding it to a given quantity of hard water until no more 

 of the familiar curdy precipitate is thrown down, the amount of hard- 

 ness will obviously be at once indicated. The method of preparing and 

 applying this soap test is as follows : 



Sixteen grains of pure carbonate of lime are dissolved in pure 

 hydrochloric acid, the solution evaporated to dryneas on a water bath, 

 the residue re-dissolved in water, again evaporated to dryness to ensure 

 the absence of free acid, and the residue now dissolved in one gallon 

 of distilled water. The resulting liquid is a solution of hydrocblorate 

 of lime, or, more correctly, chloride of calcium, but the amovmt of 

 lime in it ia identical with that in the sixteen grains of carbonate 

 of lime, and inasmuch as all soluble lime salts act similarly upon 

 soap, that is, without any influence of the acid contained in them, 

 it follows that the gallon of chloride of calcium solution accurately 

 represents a natural wjter whose hardness is due to sixteen grains 



of carbonate of lime in a gallon. All that is now necessary is to 

 ascertain how much of a dilute alcoholic solution of soap must be 

 added to a given quantity of the chloride of calcium solution before a 

 permanent lather is produced. This being done the soap-teat has 

 henceforth a value given to it, inasmuch as if it be added to any hard 

 water, equal in volume to that o the artificial hard water previously 

 experimented with, until a permanent lather be produced, the amount 

 so added indicates the number of grains of carbonate of lime present 

 in the gallon. The quantity of water tested is usually and conveniently 

 one thousand grains, and the soap-test is used to greatest advantage 

 when poured from a burette divided by transverse markings into 

 measures each containing ten grains : the soap-test should, moreover, 

 be so diluted by its proof-spirit solvent, that thirty-two measures 

 require to be added to one thousand grains of the artificially prepared 

 standard solution of sixteen degrees of hardness before complete 

 precipitation of the lime is produced and a permanent lather formed. 



In applying the soap-test to a normal water, the specimen of the 

 latter should be placed in a bottle of five or six ounces' capacity. The 

 solution of soap must then be added in small portions at a time and 

 the mixture well shaken in the intervals. When indications of a 

 lather appear on the surface of the liquid, the additions of soap-test 

 must be very small, and finally when a lather is produced that does 

 not subside until after the bottle has remained undisturbed on its 

 side for three minutes, the amount of soap-test added is noted ; an 

 inspection of a table similar to the one here appended at once indicates 

 the degree of hardness per gallon. 



CLARK'S SOAP TEST-TABLE FOR HARDNESS op WATER. 



Degree of Hardness. 



0. (Distilled water) 



1. . 



2. 



3. . . 

 4. 



5. . . 



C. 



7. . 



8. 



9. . . 

 10. 



11. 



12. 



, IS. 



14. 



15. 

 10. 



Excess of carbonic acid in a water is apt to decompose a lather o.uce 

 formed and an experiment may be thus interfered with. To avoiil this 

 source of error Professor Clark, who is the author of the process now 

 described, recommends that the water be violently agitated before the 

 addition of the soap-test, the superstratum of air being two or throe 

 times renewed by suction through a glass tube. When a water is of 

 more than sixteen degrees of hardness it should be diluted with its 

 own bnlk of distilled water before proceeding with the addition of 

 soap-test. 



Salts other than carbonate of lime confer hardness upon water, 

 moreover an equal number of degrees of hardness is produced by very 

 different amounts of the several salts. Thus, to produce ten degrees 

 of hardness the annexed quantities of the following salts are 

 necessary : 



Carbonate of lime lO'O grains. 



Sulphate of lime 13'6 



Nitrate of lime 10-4 



Chloride of calcium 11-1 



Carbonate of magnesia ..... 8*5 

 Sulphate of magnesia . ... 12-1 



Chloride of magnesium . . . ' . 3-K 



Inasmuch, however, aa it is only the relative hvrdness of a watur 

 that is usually required to be known, unnecessary complication is 

 avoided by representing that hardness in degrees, the value of which 

 has been conventionally agreed upon by chemists. One degree is 

 the amount of hardness that would be produced by one grain of 

 carbonate of lime in a gallon of water : two degrees by two grains, 

 and so on. 



SOCAGE, or SOCCAOE, is service rendered by a tenant to his 

 lord for lands, the principal ingredient of which is its being fixed 

 and determined in its nature and quality. The certainty of the service 

 distinguished socage from tenure in chivalry, or by knight's service, on 

 the one hand, and from tenure in pure villeinage by arbitrary service, 

 on the other ; and therefore Littleton says, 118, " A man may hold of 

 his lord by fealty only ; and such tenure is a tenure in socage ; for 

 every tenure which is not a tenure in chivalry is a tenure in socage." 



Socage is said by old writers to be of three kinds : socage in frank 

 tenure ; socage in ancient tenure ; and socage in base tenure. The 

 propriety of the last denomination is however doubtful. The second 

 and third kinds are now called respectively tenure in ancient dem- 

 esne and copyhold .tenure. The first kind is, called free_ and common 



