ON SACCHARATED OXIDE OF IRON. 
73 
well-defined crystals of strychnia, it could not in the one instance have been 
dispensed for morphia, or in the other mistaken for sugar. Accidents of this 
description shake public confidence in dispensing establishments however care¬ 
fully conducted, and it is incumbent on us to adopt every legitimate method by 
which a distinctive character may be the invariable attendant of so deadly a 
poison, yet one so frequently prescribed in the solid form. 
I am, Sir, yours, etc., 
Thomas Greenish. 
20, New Street , Dorset Square, 
July 20, 1869. 
ON SACCHARATED OXIDE OF IRON. 
BY S. SIEBERT, OF GOTTINGEN. 
Two parts of iron are dissolved in 24 parts of nitric acid, of specific gravity 1*2 ; the 
filtrate is evaporated to 15 parts; when quite cool 12 parts of sugar are dissolved in the 
liquid, and an excess of a solution of 12 parts of sugar in 12 parts of 20 per cent, water 
of ammonia is added.* 
The mixture is dark brown, at first gelatinous, but after agitation becomes thinner and 
clearer, and contains then, besides nitrate of ammonia and an excess of sugar, the combina¬ 
tion of sugar with ferric oxide. This compound is precipitated by mixing, after twenty-four 
hours, the clear liquid with four or five times its volume of strong alcohol. The yellowish- 
brown, flocculent, not very voluminous precipitate is collected upon a filter, washed with 
alcohol, pressed between bibulous paper, and the still moist mass intimately mixed with 
its own weight of powdered sugar, and dried by a moderate heat, when some ammonia 
is evolved, probably from the decomposition by drying of a precipitated compound of 
ammonia with sugar. The dry, inodorous mass may be triturated with water to a syrup, 
again precipitated by alcohol, the precipitate treated as before, well washed upon a filter 
with alcohol, pressed between bibulous paper, dried at ordinary temperature, and rubbed 
to powder. , , ... . ,, 
Thus prepared it forms a dark brown inodorous and tasteless powder, readily soluble 
in water and diluted alcohol; the solutions are precipitated by alcohol, the latter also by 
ether. On prolonged standing, and at once by boiling, the whole quantity of iron is 
precipitated as an insoluble compound with sugar; the alcoholic solution is more stable. 
The aqueous'solution is not altered by ferrocyanide or sulphocyanide of potassium ; tan¬ 
nin after some time produces a precipitate; sulphhydric acid and sulphide of ammonium 
precipitate the iron, from very dilute solutions slowly. Alkalies and neutral salts do 
not decompose the compound, which, however, is separated from its aqueous solution by 
their halogen compounds. Even weak acids produce decomposition, and ferrocyanide of 
potassium separates then, gradually, Prussian blue. On heating, the compound loses 
water, and with it its solubility. Analysis leads to the formula, C i 2H g 0 9 -|-2Fe2 0 3 6H0, 
which requires 43’59 Fe o 0 3 . ... 
For pharmaceutical purposes the product obtained from the first precipitation with al¬ 
cohol, mixing with sugar and drying is used. It has the same chemical properties as the 
pure compound, but differs from it by a lighter colour and a sweet taste. It contains 10 
per cent, metallic iron, = 14-28 Fe 2 0 3 . The author calls it Ferrurn oxydatum saccha- 
ratum. 
By dissolving this preparation in little water, and mixing it with simple syrup, a 
syrupus ferri oxydati may be made, of any desired strength. It has a fine red brown 
colour, is perfectly clear, and has a purely sweet taste. It may be aromatized by orange- 
flower water, etc. The dry preparation may well be used in mixtures. 
The alcohol is recovered by distillation; to remove the ammonia, the latter is to be 
* If the sugar was dissolved in the warm iron solution oxalic acid would be formed, which 
would afterwards be precipitated by the alcohol as oxalate of ammonia, and render the pre¬ 
paration poisonous. Instead of 20 per cent, water of ammonia, which during the solution of 
the sugar would lose much gas, it appears advisable to dissolve the sugar at a low temperatuie 
in the officinal 10 per cent, water of ammonia .—Wittstein. 
