B I S 



461 



B I S 



Phosphorus and Bismuth have but little affinity for each 

 other : when phosphorus was dropped into melted bismuth 

 the metal appeared to suffer but little alteration : it was 

 found, however, when tried with the blowpipe, to yield evi- 

 dent traces of phosphorus, though not amounting to more 

 than about four per cent, and this was probably mixed and 

 not combined. Phosphuretted hydrogen gas throws down 

 a black phosphuret of bismuth from solutions of the metal. 



No compound of bismuth and carbon or boron is known. 



Selenium and Bismuth unite with the evolution of a slight 

 degree of heat ; this seleniuret is of a silver-white colour and 

 metallic lustre ; its texture is crystalline and it melts at a 

 red heat. 



Bismuth and the other metals combine to form alloys, 

 and it frequently renders the metal with which it unites 

 more fusible. 



Potassium and bismuth form an alloy ; it may be prepared 

 directly ; or indirectly by calcining bismuth with bitartrate 

 of potash ; when this alloy is put into water hydrogen is 

 evolved, potash is formed and dissolved, and bismuth re- 

 mains in fine powder. Sodium forms a similar alloy with 

 bismuth ; for arsenic it has but little affinity, but combines 

 with antimony and tellurium in all proportions. 



Newton's fusible metal is composed of eight parts of bis- 

 muth, five of lead, three of tin; this alloy melts at 212. 

 Rose's alloy is fetill more fusible ; it is made of two parts 

 bismuth, one lead, and one tin ; it ftises at about 201. 



Bismuth combines with copper to form a pale red brittle 

 alloy ; it forms also a brittle compound with silver, and it 

 has been proposed as a substitute for lead in refining silver ; 

 it is said to form a more fluid oxide, which penetrates the 

 cupel more readily than that of lead, and may also be used 

 in smaller quantity. 



With mercury bismuth forms a very fluid alloy ; it ren- 

 ders the following metals brittle by combination : tungsten, 

 palladium, rhodium, gold, and platina. 



Bismuth and acids combine to form salts of bismuth ; 

 the nitrate is one of the most important and most easily 

 obtained, because a part of the acid being decomposed it 

 yields the oxygen requisite to render the metal soluble in 

 the remaining acid. 



When nitric acid is only moderately diluted it acts with 

 great readiness upon bismuth ; much nitric oxide gas is 

 evolved, and a colourless solution of nitrate of bismuth is 

 procured, which by cautious evaporation yields deliquescent 

 crystals composed of 



1 equivalent of acid .... 54 

 1 ditto oxide bismuth ... 79 

 3 ditto water . . . . 27 



equivalent . . . .160 



This salt, as well as the solution which yields it, is decom- 

 posed by water, a sub-nitrate being thrown down which is 

 directed to be prepared in the London Pharmacopoeia under 

 the name of bismuthi subnitras; it is a trisnitrate com- 

 posed of one equivalent of acid + three of oxide. 



Sulphuric acid, neither concentrated nor dilute, acts upon 

 bismuth unless heat be employed, and then the strong acid 

 is decomposed with the evolution of sulphurous acid gas ; 

 there are formed in this process a small quantity of a super 

 and subsulphate of bismuth, neither of which is applied to 

 any use. 



Carbonate of bismuth is a white tasteless powder pro- 

 cured by adding an alkaline carbonate to the solution of the 

 nitrate ; it appears to be a tris-carbonate, and is applied to 

 no use. 



Most of the salts of bismuth are colourless, and they are 

 generally decomposed by water; ferrocyanate of potash 

 gives a white gallic acid an orange yellow, and sulphuretted 

 hydrogen a black precipitate when addud to solutions of 

 bismuth ; copper and tin, when put into solutions of b= 

 muth, throw down this metal. 



Bismuth is principally employed for the purpose of making 

 fusible alloys and as an ingredient in solders. It is often 

 called in the arts tin-glass. 



BISMUTH, MEDICAL USES OF. Bismuth taken 

 into the stomach in the stateof a metal produces noeffect upon 

 the human system. It is therefore in the form of one of its 

 preparations that it is employed as a medicinal agent; and 

 for this purpose the subnitrate, called also the magistery of 

 bismuth, and also, incorrectly, the white oxide of bismuth, is 

 generally preferred. This is a white powder, sometimes in 

 lumps resembling chalk, inodorous and tasteless. It is in- 



soluble in water, and but slightly soluble in the juices of 

 the stomach, a circumstance which accounts for its limited 

 sphere of action ; hence its employment is almost entirely 

 confined to affections of the stomach itself. In large doses, 

 however, it is undoubtedly poisonous, and produces vomiting, 

 with small pulse, faintings, and even death, the stomach 

 exhibiting erosions and signs of inflammation. Even its 

 external application is not free from danger, for the cosmetic 

 termed pearl while, or Spanish white, which is subnitrate 

 of bismuth, when applied for a length of time to the face, 

 causes nervous twitchings, and finally paralysis. Subni- 

 trate of bismuth is considered a tonic, and in nervous pains 

 and cramps of the stomach it is decidedly antispasmodic. 

 In what is termed gastrodynia, either given alone, or with 

 one grain of opium, it is in general more efficacious than 

 any other means in speedily removing the pain. It is also 

 sometimes useful in pyrosis, especially if complicated with 

 affections of the pancreas. In this case it is advantageously 

 combined with rhubarb. Extract of hops is also an appro- 

 priate vehicle for it. Being insoluble in water it can never 

 be administered in that vehicle. 



Its employment has been proposed in hysteria, tetanus, 

 and intermittent fever, but its utility is very slight when 

 the cause of these diseases is remote from the stomach. In 

 case of an overdose, tea, white of egg, or milk, are the best 

 antidotes. As pearl white is blackened by sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, the face of those who employ this cosmetic is 

 blackened by the use of the Harrowgate or other sulphureous 

 waters. / 



BISNAGHUR. [See BIJANAGHUR.] 



BISON (zoology), the name of a subgenus of the genus 

 bos, ox, comprehending two living species, one of them 

 European, now become very scarce and verging towards 

 extinction ; the other American, and, notwithstanding the 

 advances of man, still multitudinous. 



EUROPEAN BISON. 



A good deal of difference of opinion has thrown some 

 obscurity over this species. Pennant, in his British Zoo- 

 logy, after stating his belief that the antient wild cattle 

 of our island were the Bisontes jubati of Pliny, thus 

 continues : ' The Urus of the Hercynian forest, de- 

 scribed by Ctesar, book vi., was of this kind, the same 

 which is called by the modern Germans, Aurochs, I. e. 

 Bos sylvestris.' Now let us look at Csesar's description. 

 ' These Uri are little inferior to elephants in size, but are 

 bulls in their nature, colour, and figure. Great is their 

 strength and great their swiftness, nor do they spare man 

 or beast when they have caught sight of them. These, 

 when trapped in pitfalls, the hunters diligently kill. The 

 youths exercising themselves by this sort of hunting are 

 hardened by the toil ; and those among them who have 

 killed most, bringing with them the horns as testimonials, 

 acquire great praise. But these Uri cannot be habituated 

 to man or made tractable, not even when young. The 

 great size of the horns, as well as the form and quality of 

 them, differs much from the horns of our oxen. These, 

 when carefully selected, they ring round the edge with 

 silver and use them for drinking-cups at their ample feasts.'* 

 Though there are parts of this description applicable to 

 the European bison, there is one striking character which 

 forbids us to conclude that Csesar's Urus was identical with 

 it. A glance at the European bison will convince us that 

 it never could have afforded the horns whose amplitude 

 Coesar celebrates. In the Archeeologia, vol. iii. p. 15, it is 

 stated that the Borstal horn is supposed to have belonged 

 to the bison or buffalo. That it might have belonged to a 

 buffalo is not impossible, but that it did not belong to a 

 bison is sufficiently clear from the following description. 

 'It is two feet four inches long on the convex bend, and 



* It is not improbable that the large horns (v<ri(l(uti xi{*T) of the oxen 



*; Vfirut r?ui x; T!TTff ') A choe was probably about a S allon. 

 He also mentions the custom of surrounding the lip of such^drmking-cutm 

 with a rim of gold or silver (?i !/'*>! nflffyf""'' "*' X.C""" T ">- 

 The whole pasi.ge, where he observes that ox horns were the pri.u,tiv< 

 ing-cups (nil rtunu; Xiycrz; rut Ki^n y frui vtna), whence 

 horns of Bacchus and the worship of thai deity under the form of a bull, is 

 worthy of attention with reference to the next note. 



Herodotus (vii. 26) records the Macedonian wild oxen With exeedmg large 

 horns (0.i, i yv ,t, ru, T* *iji* um^tyuf'M IrTl). These wild oxen 

 were probably Cuesar's Uri. . 



