ACTION OF THE VEGETABLE ACIDS ON CALOMEL. 169 
proto- to that of deuto-chloride, because the affinity of 
chlorine for hydrogen (reduction of the chloride of silver by 
means of nascent hydrogen) exceeds its affinity for mercury. 
Still its employment should not be advised with calomel, 
because combining with the alkaline substances in the body, 
it passes to the state of chloride, whose action we have already 
described. 
The extreme ease with which the mercurial chloride is 
converted into a soluble salt under the influence of so many 
chemical agents, renders great prudence necessary on the 
part of the physician. 
Corrosive sublimate dissolved in syrup, does not deposit 
calomel for twenty-four hours. This saccharolate had not 
lost its clearness after four days, nor deposited the least pre- 
cipitate, after having been exposed to a temperature varying 
from 86° to 140° F. (30 q to 60° C.) After boiling for some 
time, the syrup becomes turbid and deposits protochloride. 
The saccharine solution, already more or less decomposed by 
the partial carbonization of the sugar, yielded a further quan- 
tity of deutochloride to sulphuric ether, which proves that 
the sugar which is generally added to calomel is rather 
employed to give a pleasant flavour to the medicament, than 
to convert into protochloride the traces of deutochloride 
which the calomel might possibly contain, as is the general 
opinion. 
Animal albumen, which is generally recommended to 
neutralize the effect of deutochloride of mercury, does not 
possess this quality to the extent that might be desired. 
M. Orfila, who first recommended albuminous water in poi- 
soning by corrosive sublimate, advises giving enough to 
decompose the whole, but not to give too much, so that an 
excess might not redissolve the sparingly soluble compound, 
which this mercurial chloride forms with the albumen, and 
thus restore to it a portion of its poisonous qualities. 
In poisoning by the soluble salts of mercury, we think that 
the preference as an antidote should be given to substances 
which the digestive functions will not alter, such as hydrated 
protosulphuret of iron, advised by M. Mialhe, tannate of 
potassa, and iron filings themselves. — Annates de la Societe de 
Medecine de Gand, May, 1856. 
XXX. 
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