308 ARSENIC. 



rally described as acrid, sub-acrid, or sweetish ; but there is a great 

 diversity of opinion among physicians with regard to its effects on 

 the tongue and palate. Its specific gravity is about 3 f 7. When heated 

 in the open air it is fused and volatalized, at a temperature of 380° of 

 Fahrenheit, but no alliaceous odour is perceived unless it be partially 

 decomposed ; the garlic smell belonging to it in its metallic state, 

 and not to its oxide. According to Klaproth, it is soluble in 400 

 parts of water, at 60°, and in 13 parts of boiling water. It solu- 

 tion is said, by Dr. Ure, to redden the vegetable blues, though it 

 turns the syrup of violets green. It is also sparingly soluble in 

 oils and alcohol. Berzelius states, that 100 parts of the metal in 

 this compound are united with about 31 parts of oxygen, and 

 the experiments of Proust and Thomson seem to confirm this 

 opinion. Arsenious acid combines with the various salifiable bases, 

 (alkalies, earths, and metallic oxides,) forming salts, which are easily 

 decomposed by heat and charcoal. The most important of these 

 compounds is the Arseniate of Potash. It is formed by boiling 64 

 grains of arsenious acid, rubbed to a very fine powder, with as 

 much sub- carbonate of potash, in a pint of distilled water, the 

 boiling being continued till the solution is completed. When 

 this is flavoured and coloured by adding four drachms of 

 compound spirit of lavender, it forms the Liquor, or Solutio 

 Arsenicalis, which has been used as a substitute for an empirical 

 remedy called the tasteles ague drop. It is generally known 

 under the name of Fowler's solution, but it appears now that it 

 was known and published so far back as the year 1758. One 

 ounce of the fluid contains four grains of white arsenic, and is 

 administered in the cure of obstinate intermittents, periodical 

 head-aches, chronic, cutaneous eruptions, and other diseases, in 

 which arsenic has been given internally. The dose is from four 

 to twelve or fifteen drops, conjoined with aromatics, three or four 

 times a-day. It is decomposed by lime water, metallic salts, and 

 the infusion of bark. Nitrate of silver, added to a solution of 

 white oxide of arsenic, throws down a brick-red precipitate, lime 

 water a white one, and the alkaline sulphurets a pale yellow pre- 

 cipitate. 



Notwithstanding its activity as a poison, white arsenic has 



