NOTE ON THE ADULTERATION OF PRECIPITATED SULPHUR. 473 
Chemists and druggists, their customers, and medical practitioners, should 
refuse to purchase any precipitated sulphur which leaves a white ash when a 
little is burnt off on the end of a table-knife or spatula. (The sulphur does no 
more damage to the steel than a rub on a knifeboard will remove.) 
Mr. Hanbury remarked that the only formula given in the Pharmacopoeia 
for milk of sulphur produced this impure result. 
Dr. Redwood said that was rather an important point. Pie was far from 
being prepared to advocate the use of milk of sulphur in preference to precipi¬ 
tated sulphur, but, nevertheless, when the fact of the former preparation, con¬ 
taining a large quantity of sulphate of lime, was brought forward as an impu¬ 
tation on pharmaceutists for selling an adulterated article, he must take excep¬ 
tion to the charge, and say that he did not admit it to be an adulteration. As 
stated by Mr. Hanbury, the only officinal process for making milk of sulphur was 
given in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1721, and practically produced a mix¬ 
ture of sulphate of lime and sulphur, which was obtained by precipitating with 
sulphuric acid a sulphide of calcium. It was quite possible, but by no means 
certain, that pure sulphur would answer the desired purpose better. As he had 
stated, with reference to some other preparations, it was sometimes found that 
an admixture of foreign matter, so far from injuring the action of a remedy, 
promoted its efficacy. This was said to be so with reference to the action of 
the resin of jalap and other medicinal substances ; the intermixture of some 
inert material promoted the action of the medicine in certain cases; in what 
way he would not undertake to say, perhaps by merely separating the particles. 
At any rate they should be careful how they too strongly condemned a prepa¬ 
ration, merely on the ground stated in this case, when it was well known and 
had been long used by the public. They had been accustomed to take a cer¬ 
tain'quantity of milk of sulphur, and to expect a certain action from it. It 
mixed with liquids much better than precipitated sulphur did, and he believed 
a large number of the public, for this and other reasons, liked it better. He did 
not advocate the use of milk of sulphur, much less the substitution of it for pre¬ 
cipitated sulphur, for milk of sulphur was one thing and precipitated sulphur 
another. If any one supplied the former in the place of precipitated or sublimed 
sulphur, they would act very wrongly; but when they were asked fur milk of 
sulphur, he could not see that they were to blame for supplying it, and, in 
many cases, if pure sulphur were substituted, he did not think the public would 
be satisfied. 
Mr. Bland said this subject had been discussed many years ago, and, as the 
result, he obtained some pure precipitated sulphur and retailed it, and the con¬ 
sequence was an almost universal complaint. Pure precipitated sulphur was with 
great difficulty miscible in water or any aqueous vehicle, which caused great 
complaint. Like many others, he had been obliged to fall back on the old pre¬ 
paration simply in self-defence. 
Mr. Hills was surprised to hear Dr. Redwood advocate milk of sulphur as a 
genuine preparation. He would remind him that by the New Pharmacy Act 
those who sold adulterated articles were liable to a fine. 
Dr. Redwood considered that milk of sulphur, as usually sold, was not an 
adulteration. 
Mr. Hills said he did not feel at all sure of that, himself. 
Mr. Morson said milk of sulphur did not profess to be pure sulphur. 
Dr. Attfield was astonished to find any one connected with that Society 
sheltering themselves in the matter of adulteration behind either custom or an 
old Pharmacopoeia. The public knew nothing about the old Pharmacopoeia, or 
how the article was made, or what it was professed to be; if they asked for 
sulphur they expected to get sulphur. “Milk of sulphur’’ was simply the 
