34 



MALVACEAE 



ACTION AND USES. Employed as a dressing for burns, scalds, and excoriated 

 surfaces, and for making antiseptic cottons, such as salicylated cotton, ben- 

 zoinated cotton, iodoform cotton, etc. 



Pyroxylinum (Soluble Gun-cotton), the basis of the various official collodions. 



344 c. OIL. OLEUM GOSSYPII SEMINIS. A fixed oil expressed from the seeds. 

 Pale yellowish, odorless, with a bland, nut-like taste; specific gravity 0.920 

 to 0.930 at I5C. (59F.), solidifying at about o to - 5C. (32 to 23F.); 



FIG. 175. Gossypium herbaceum Branch. 



very sparingly soluble in alcohol. Brought into contact with concentrated 

 sulphuric acid, the oil at once assumes a dark reddish-brown color. Color 

 reactions with nitric acid and silver nitrate (see U.S. P. tests) distinguish 

 this oil from other similar oils. The oil is used as a basis for Linimentum 

 Ammoniae, Linimentum Camphorae, etc. Processes have been invented for 

 purifying the crude oil to abstract its acrid resin, and so leave it bland and 

 as palatable as the olive oil, for which it is oftentimes substituted as a table 

 or salad oil. 



CONSTITUENTS. Palmitin, olein, and a pale-yellow coloring- matter that is non- 

 saponifiable. 



