BISMUTH. 257 



muth also combines with iodine and sulphur, but not with carbon, 

 hydrogen, or phosphorus. Bismuth is capable of being alloyed 

 with most metals, and forms with some of them compounds of 

 remarkable fusibility. Bismuth enters as an ingredient into the 

 composition of printing-types, and of pewter ; it is used as solder 

 in the construction of mirrors, and for the refining of gold and 

 silver. The old pharmaceutical writers describe Bismuth under 

 the names of tin-glass and marcasite ; but the metal itself is not 

 used medicinally. 



Salts of Bismuth . 



The only preparation of this metal employed as an article of the 

 materia medica is the subnitrate. 



Subnitrate of Bismuth, Bismuthi Subnitras. Ph. — If the nitric 

 solution, or the crystals which it deposits, be acted on by a large por- 

 tion of water they are decomposed, and the subnitrate is thrown down 

 in the form of a fine white powder. When washed and dried it is 

 inodorous and insipid. It was known formerly under the name of 

 blanc defard, and hlanc de perle or pearl powder, and magistery of 

 bismuth, and is used as a paint for the complexion ; but like the ox- 

 ides of lead, is liable to become black on exposure to the sulphuretted 

 hydrogen gas. Medicinally, the sub -nitrate of bismuth has been em- 

 ployed as a tonic and antispasmodic, with considerable advantage, in 

 pyrosis, gastrodynia, and other affections, attended by loss of tone 

 and increased irritability of the stomach.* The best form for its use 

 is that of a pill, with any bitter extract. The dose may be from 

 gr. ii. to gr. xii. twice or thrice a-day. From the experiments of 

 Orfila on brute animals it would appear that in large doses this 

 salt proves an active poison. Dr. Kerner, of Weisenberg, in 

 " Heidelbergen Klinische Annalen," relates the case of a man who 

 took, by mistake for magnesia, a large quantity of the subnitrate of 

 bismuth : soon afterwards he felt a burning sensation in the throat, 

 and was affected with singultus, frequent vomiting of a brownish 



•f See Odicr, Manuel de Medecine Pratique, 180f>. Canninati, Opuscnla The- 

 rapeutica. ' Marcet, Mem. Loncl. Med. Soc. Bardsley's Med. Reports, 1807. 

 Yeats, Quarterly Journal, TOi' viii. p. 295. 



