i 



46 GALLUS SONNERA.TI. 



lcscencies and other cases of debility. The white of eggs, when 

 given in sufficient quantity, has been found to be the best antidote 

 for the poisonous preparations of copper and corrosive sublimate. 

 For this purpose it is recommended to diffuse the whites of eggs 

 in cold water, in the proportion of one dozen of eggs to two pints 

 of water, and administer a glassful of this mixture every ten 

 minutes. M. Orfila, to whom we are indebted for this important 

 discovery, found that when twenty-five or twenty-six grains of 

 verdigris were mixed with the white of six eggs, the poison, which, 

 if pure, would have killed a dog in three hours, did not cause death 

 for seven days, and had no effect at all for five days, although the 

 gullet was tied to prevent the mixture from being expelled.* 

 M. Peschier, in the Journal de Medicine, xxxviii. 77, states that 

 the white of one egg is required to render four grains of the poison 

 inert. E22; shells are antacid, and when burnt have sometimes 

 been used in medicine ; but they differ in no respect from lime or 

 chalk. The yolk is used in pharmaceutical operations, for ren- 

 dering oils, camphor, and some other substances miscible with 

 water. From its coagulability albumen is of great use in clarifying 

 liquids ; when dried it becomes a brittle transparent glassy-like 

 substance, which, when spread thin upon substances, forms a 

 varnish, and is accordingly much employed by book-binders for 

 that purpose. It likewise possesses the property of rendering 

 leather supple, for which purpose a solution of whites of eggs in 

 water is used by leather-dressers ; and hence it has been proposed 

 to employ this solution in cases of contraction and rigidity of the 

 tendons. Whites of eggs beaten in a bason with a lump of alum 

 till they coagulate, form the alum curd of Riverius, and the 

 coagulum aluminis, or alum cataplasm, of former editions of the 

 London pharmacopeia, used as an astringent application to the 

 eyes in chronic ophthalmia. 



The ova of birds bear no inconsiderable analogy in alimentary 

 properties to the milk of the mammalia, and forms a mild nutritious 

 article of food, well suited to consumptive persons and debilitated 

 constitutions. The eggs of the different species of the gallinacea, 

 differ very little in alimentary properties ; but those of the common 



* Toxicologic Generate, i. 540. 



