CAR BO. 



123 



Diluted Hydrochloric Acid, washing the undissolved 

 part, and heating to redness in a closed crucible. 



Characters. A black powder, inodorous, and nearly 

 tasteless. 



Dose. 20 to 60 gr. 



2. Cartoo IJgnl. Wood Charcoal. 

 So/tree. Wood charred by exposure to a red heat without 

 access of air. 



Characters. Black, brittle, porous masses, without taste or 

 smell, and retaining the texture of wood ; contains about 2 per 

 cent, vegetable ash. 

 Dose. 20 to 60 gr. 



Preparation. 



Cataplasma Carbonis. -Wood Charcoal, Linseed 

 Meal, Bread Crumb, and boiling Water. 



Charcoal is also used pharmaceutically as a decolorising 

 agent, in the preparation of such drugs as morphia and 

 atropia. 



ACTION AND USES. 



Externally. Charcoal absorbs and condenses many gaseous 

 bodies and vapours, as oxygen, carbonic acid, etc., and 

 attracts the colouring, odoriferous, and sapid principles of 

 many liquid substances, for example, litmus, bitters, wines, and 

 decomposing liquids in general. It is used as a deodorant and 

 disinfectant to absorb the foul emanations from cancerous 

 and other discharges, ulcers, and wounds, being either hung 

 around the bed in bags, or directly applied in dust, or as the 

 poultice (a bad form.) 



Internally. Charcoal is locally used as a dentifrice. When 

 taken into the stomach in sufficient bulk, either pnre, or in the 

 form of biscuits, it absorbs any gas and acrid products of in< lii^i *- 

 tion which may be distending and distressing the organ, and is 

 useful as a carminative in some forms of flatulent dyspepsia. 

 Animal charcoal has been recommended by Dr. Garrod as an 

 antidote in poisoning by opium, nux-vomica, aconite, and other 

 organic poisons, which it attracts from their solutions in the 

 stomach, and rein UTS in* rt. It is doubtful, however, whether 

 the absorptive action of charcoal can be retained in the bowel, 

 or even in the stomach, after it has been thoroughly brought 

 in contact with water. In the intestines it may possibly re* lure 

 flatulence, deodorise the faeces, and thus reduce the r.-tl.-x peri- 

 staltic movements, and relieve diarrhea. 



Charcoal is entirely evacuated by the bowel and is not 

 absorbed, so that it exerts no specific action on the body. 



