IN THE COUNTERACTION OF POISONS. 37 



removed, or not, when means for that purpose had been 

 adopted. 



Within these few years many valuable lives have been lost, by 

 Oxalic Acid having been mistaken for Epsom salts (sulphate of 

 magnesia), and administered as a medicine instead of them. 

 This acid scarcely exists in nature, in an active state ; but the 

 refinements of Civilization, while they apply so many natural 

 objects to the increase of human enjoyment, require, as means, 

 the use of many deleterious substances, some extracted from 

 nature, others, as is usually the case with oxalic acid, produced 

 by art. These facts, again, evince that general refinement and 

 general scientific knowledge, should be commensurate. The 

 science of Chemistry here also offers a means of detection and 

 an antidote. All the powerful acids, and oxalic acid is one of 

 them, have the power of expelling carbonic acid from its com- 

 binations, the bases of those combinations uniting, as it were by 

 preference, with the stronger acid. If there be any doubt, there- 

 fore, whether the white salt which has been purchased or found 

 among medicines, and part of which may have been taken as 

 medicine, be Epsom salts or oxalic acid, let it be stirred up 

 in water, or still better dissolved in hot water. Then let some 

 powdered chalk (identical, in a chemical point of view, with 

 the lime which has absorbed the noxious gas from the suffoca- 

 ting well) or whiting be mixed with it. If it be oxalic acid, the 

 mixture will immediately froth up, with a hissing noise, both 

 occasioned by the escape of carbonic acid gas ; if no such effect 

 is produced, it certainly is not oxalic acid. 



In this manner may an acquaintance with the facts of chemi- 

 cal science either relieve the mind from agonizing apprehen- 

 sion, or confirm the necessity of procuring medical assistance 

 for the preservation of life. The same science, should oxalic 

 acid really have been taken into the stomach, will furnish an 

 antidote, in the very substance employed to detect the poison. 

 The poisonous action of the powerful acids arises from their 

 corrosive effects on the coats of the stomach ; when united with 

 bases into salts, they lose their peculiar properties, and the cor- 

 rosive one among them. The oxalic acid thus loses its corrosive 

 power by combining with the lime of the chalk, with which it 

 forms an inert and harmless substance, the oxalate of lime. 

 The carbonic acid gas which it expels from the chalk, though 

 fatal when respired when taken ink) the lungs is harmless 

 in the stomach. If, therefore, chalk or whiting, mixed with 

 water, be administered to the party who has swallowed oxalic 

 acid, before the poison has had time to exert its destructive 

 effects, those effects may be prevented, and life preserved. 



It may be alleged that such useful facts as these may be 



