Intelligence and Miscellanies. 183 



my office in great agony, and he had scarcely time to give 

 an account of it before he fainted. I immediately applied 

 the ammonia to the parts that had been stung, his legs, arms 

 and breast. He directly recovered from his faintness, and 

 experienced no pain or other inconvenience afterwards. 



It is several years since I first used the aqua ammonia?, to 

 counteract the eifect of the bites of insects and stings of 

 bees, and it has invariably produced instant relief^ — generally 

 complete. I have often seen children crying in excessive 

 pain from the sting of a bee, and on the apphcation of the 

 ammonia they would immediately cease complaining and 

 become cheerful ; so complete and sudden is the relief it 

 produces. I always use it for musquito bites, and they never 

 trouble me farther. I was led to the use of it in these cases, 

 from the instantaneous effect it was said to have in counter- 

 acting the operation of prussic acid. In the second num- 

 ber of the American Journal of Medical Sciences, (Phila- 

 delphia,) for last year, it will be seen that Dr. Moore, of 

 Alabama, used it with great success in the cure of bites 

 of venomous serpents. From his account, it is probable that 

 the pure uncarbonated aqua ammonise is most efficacious. 

 I have sometimes noticed that the application is more effica- 

 cious than at others, and I think it must be on account of its 

 being sometimes carbonated and at others not. 



13. Atomic Weight of Mercury. 

 (Communicated.) 



In a recent examination of the powder, supposed to be a 

 protoxide of mercury, my attention was turned to the sub- 

 ject of the atomic weight of mercury, and upon applying to 

 some of its combinations, the generally received theory, that 

 binary compounds are more difficult of decomposition than 

 ternary, I have been led to the conclusion, that its equiva- 

 lent number has been mis stated by chemical writers. 



The protosulphuret and protochloride, are both more ea- 

 sily decomposed than the compounds containing double the 

 proportion of their respective electro negatives. The only 

 cj'^anide of mercury is now considered as containing two at- 

 oms of cyanogen. The protoxide I believe exists only in 

 combination with acids. 



I have very frequently decomposed several of the proto- 

 salts of mercury with alkahes, and the resulting powder has 

 uniformly contained metallic globules, either visible to the 



