396 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
done, a tolerably satisfactory result, he got very imperfect and unsatisfactory 
results. 
Mr. Abraham thought the observation made by the President with respect to 
the necessity of carefully studying the quality of the opium employed, applied 
equally to the tincture of opium and to the fluid extract of opium of the Phar¬ 
macopoeia ; and the remarks he had made showed that those preparations must 
vary very materially in strength, particularly if they compared the preparation 
of one person with that of another. But he thought the remark made by Dr. 
Attfield was to the point, that they really did not know exactly what they wanted. 
A certain solution, called Battley’s sedative solution, had acquired great repu¬ 
tation as possessing certain medicinal properties. Now, he wanted to make, 
not a substance which should contain either the alkaloids or any other particu¬ 
lar extracted matter, but he wanted to produce a liquid which would produce 
the same sedative effects as Battley’s solution, without producing the objection¬ 
able effects which were commonly ascribed to tincture of opium. The fluid 
extract of opium of the Pharmacopoeia very much resembled the solution of 
opium of Battley and Watts; and, he did not know, but he presumed it was 
intended to be substituted for it. 
ON METALLIC BISMUTH. 
BY C. H. WOOD, F.C.S. 
The issue of the discussion which has taken place in the Pharmaceutical Jour¬ 
nal, on the Liquor Bisinuthi et Ammonise Citratisof the British Pharmacopoeia, 
is dependent on the nature and amount of the impurities present in commercial 
bismuth, and the efficiency of the nitre process for their removal. Although 
several communications from different contributors have been published upon 
this subject, no one has yet given any exact estimate of the quantity of impu¬ 
rity which the metal usually contains, and the proportion of this which can or 
cannot be removed by the Pharmacopoeia method. 
The officinal process for the purification of bismuth is in accordance with the 
method indicated by most chemical authorities. Gmelin, Watts, and other au¬ 
thors state that the impurities of bismuth are removed by fusion with nitre. 
Mr. Schacht’s experiments sufficiently demonstrate the possibility of removing the 
whole of the arsenic by this means. It is true that, in some fusions, Mr. Schacht 
found a portion of the arsenic still remained in the metal, but we are not in- 
formed what the proportions were before and after, and we have every right to 
assume that, by continuing or repeating the process, the whole might have been 
removed in these as in the other cases. My own experiments have sufficiently 
satisfied me that the Pharmacopoeia method is an efficient one for the complete 
removal of arsenic, antimony, and sulphur. The most careful application of 
Marsh’s test has failed to detect either of the former substances in any sample of 
the metal I have purified. 
Mr. Schacht and others, however, have brought forward experiments to show 
that the nitre process fails to remove the copper from bismuth, and have urged 
this point as one of the strongest objections to the Pharmacopoeia method. It 
is certainly true that fusion with nitre is useless for the removal of very small 
quantities of copper. Down to what proportion it is possible to reduce the 
copper by this means, I am not prepared to say, and I do not know that 
any experiments have been published on the point. I cannot admit, however, 
that the nitre fails to remove any portion of this impurity, as some have im¬ 
plied ; for the following experiment goes’ to show the contrary. Messrs. John¬ 
son and Matthey were kind enough to prepare for me a piece of bismuth con- 
