NOTES ON CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 



225 



chloride is in a state of great purity and beautifully white. 

 The sulphate of lime is in minute, transparent, acicular crystals, 

 to the naked eye perfectly simulating the chloride of mercury, 

 which it is ingeniously used to adulterate. The proportion in 

 which the two salts exists is not readily determined, as it is 

 impossible to obtain a uniform mixture for experiment with- 

 out powdering the entire specimen. From three experiments, 

 however, it appears that sulphate of lime constitutes at 

 least a fourth part of the specimen of Chinese calomel under 

 notice. 1 



King-fun is mentioned by Cleyer as E Jcim fueh, and sup- 

 posed by him to be a natural production, a suggestion quite 

 inadmissible as regards my specimen. Mr. Lockhart informs me 

 it is brought from the province of Gan-hwuy, but of the locality 

 where it is manufactured, and of the process, I am quite 

 ignorant. The Mongols are said to purchase sublimate of the 

 Russians : 2 perhaps by this we may understand calomel also. 

 The Chinese appear to have a correct notion of the use of 

 calomel as a purgative, and they also employ it in the form 

 of ointment in cases of ulcer, to cleanse and produce a free 

 purulent discharge. 



Choo-sha ; 7T ? y Tan-sha ; Cinnabar ; Red 

 Sulphuret of Mercury. Pun-tsaou, Fig. 23 ; Cleyer, Med. SimpL, 

 No. 177. This mineral has been regarded by the Chinese as 

 the Philosophers Stone, and most extravagant ideas have been 

 entertained respecting it. The Rev. J. Edkins in a communica- 

 tion recently laid before the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society 3 has pointed out that alchemy was pursued in China 

 long previous to its being known in Europe, in fact, that for 

 two centuries prior to the Christian era, and for four or more 

 subsequent, the transmutation of the base metals into gold, and 

 the composition of an elixir of immortality, were questions 



1 See F. Porter Smith on Chinese Chemical Manufactures in Ph. J. 

 June 22, 1872, p. 1031, who refers to Davis's Chinese, voL iii., for some 

 account of making calomel. 



2 Bull, de Pharm., iii., p. 387. 



3 Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong 

 Kong), Part 5, 1855, Art. iv. 



I860 62, 



Chinese 

 Calomel. 



Cinnabar. 



