138 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 13, 1870. 
supplied by a duly qualified apothecary nor apply to any 
article when forming part of the ingredients of any me¬ 
dicine dispensed by a duly qualified apothecary, providec 
such medicine be labelled in the manner aforesaid with 
the name and address of the seller, and the ingredients 
thereof be entered with the name of the person to whom 
it is sold or delivered in a book to be kept by the seller 
for that purpose; and nothing in this Act contained shal 
repeal or affect any of the provisions of the Act of 
the fourteenth and fifteenth years of the reign of her 
present Majesty, intituled “An Act to Regulate the 
Sale of Arsenic.” 
3. The provisions of the Act of the twenty-third and 
twenty-fourth years of the reign of her present Majesty 
intituled “ An Act for preventing the Adulteration of 
Articles of Food or Drink,” shall extend to all articles 
usually taken or sold as medicines, and every adulteration 
of any such article shall be deemed an admixture inju¬ 
rious to^health. 
4. Every penalty recoverable under the provisions of 
this Act shall be recoverable in a summary way, with 
respect to the police district of Dublin metropolis subject 
and according to the provisions of any Act regulating 
the powers and duties of justices of the peace for such 
district or of the police of such district, and with respect 
to other parts of Ireland before a justice or justices of the 
peace sitting in petty sessions, subject and according to 
provisions of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851, and 
any Act amending the same, and shall be applied accord¬ 
ing to the provisions of the Fines Act (Ireland), 1851, or 
any Act amending the same. 
Schedule A. 
Part I. 
Arsenic, and its preparations. 
Prussic acid. 
•Cyanides of potassium and all metallic cyanides. 
■Strychnine, and all poisonous vegetable alkaloids and 
their salts. 
Aconite, and its preparations. 
Emetic tartar. 
Corrosive sublimate. 
Cantharides. 
Savin, and its oil. 
Ergot of rye, and its preparations. 
Part IP. 
Oxalic acid. 
Chloroform. 
Belladonna, and its preparations. 
Essential oil of almonds, unless deprived of its prussic 
acid. 
Opium, and all preparations of opium or of poppies. 
Preparations of corrosive sublimate. 
Preparations of morphine. 
Red oxide of mercury (commonly known as red precipi¬ 
tate of mercury). 
Ammoniated mercury (commonly known as white pre¬ 
cipitate of mercury). 
Every compound containing any of the poisons men¬ 
tioned in this schedule, when prepared or sold for the 
destruction of vermin. 
The tincture and all vesicating liquid preparations of 
cantharides. 
Schedule B. 
Date. 
Name of 
Purchaser. 
Name and 
Quantity 
of Poison 
sold. 
Purpose 
for which 
it is 
required. 
Signature 
of Pur¬ 
chaser. 
Signature 
of Person 
introducing 
Purchaser. 
fijjstjrttrs far Stuirants. 
CHEMICAL NOTES TO THE PHARMACOPOEIA. 
BY WILLIAM A. TILDEN, B.SC. LOND. 
DEMONSTRATOR OF PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY TO THE 
PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 
Acidum Nitricum. — [§ An acid, prepared from 
nitrate of potash or nitrate of soda, by distillation 
with sulphuric acid and water, and containing 70 
per cent, by weight of nitric acid, H N 0 3 .] Spe¬ 
cific gravity 1'42. 
The reaction which occurs in the retort is similar 
to that in which hydrochloric acid is produced 
KNO a , or NaN0 3 + H.,S0 4 
= HN0 3 -f- KHS0 4 , or NaHS0 4 . 
Absolute nitric acid differs from hydrochloric acid 
in being, at ordinary temperatures, not a gas, but a 
fuming liquid of sp. gr. I - 51; this was the prepara¬ 
tion of the B. P. 1864 ; it is, however, extremely un¬ 
stable, underling decomposition spontaneously in 
the light, and in many respects inconvenient, and 
was, therefore, replaced in the present edition by a 
weaker acid. Nitric acid poured over copper filings 
evolves dense red fumes, consisting chiefly of nitric 
peroxide:— 
4HN0 3 + Cu = Cu" 2N0 3 + 2H 2 0 -f- 2N0 2 . 
If previously diluted with water, nitric oxide is 
the gas evolved :— 
8HN0 3 + 3 Cu = 3 (Cu 2 N 0 3 ) + 4H 2 0 + 2NO. 
Nitric oxide is a colourless gas, but when it meets 
oxygen either alone or mixed with other gases, as in 
atmospheric air, it forms an orange-red vapour :— 
2NO + 0 2 = 2N0 2 . 
Nitric oxide. Oxygen. Nitric peroxide. 
Nitric oxide forms, with ferrous sulphate, a dark- 
coloured solution, upon the formation of which de¬ 
pends the usual test for nitrates:—Dissolve the sub¬ 
stance in water, add a small crystal of sulphate of 
iron, and shake up till partly dissolved, then pour into 
lie inclined tube sufficient pure and strong sulphuric 
acid to form a separate stratum at the bottom. The 
fine where the two liquids meet is marked by a 
mrple or brown coloration if a nitrate (or nitrite) is 
iresent. Nitric acid is an example of what are 
'mown as oxidizing agents; it readily and freely 
gives up part of its oxygen. Tliis arises from the 
strong affinity of the hydrogen in it, and the weaker 
affinity of the nitrogen for oxygen; so that when 
brought into contact with bodies greedy of oxygen, 
oxygen separates from it, water is formed, and one of 
;lie oxides of nitrogen. This is the reason of its de¬ 
flagration when poured upon hot charcoal, the deco- 
.orization of incligo and other reactions, e.g. when 
nitrate of ammonia is strongly heated :— 
NH 3 .HN 0 3 = 2H 2 0 + N 2 0. 
Water. Nitrous oxide. 
Also its reactions with copper already described, 
and resulting in the evolution of nitric oxide and 
leroxide. 
The sesquioxide of nitrogen, or nitrous anhydride, 
is evolved when it acts upon white arsenic :— 
As 2 0 3 + 2HNO s = As 2 0 5 + H 2 0 + N 2 0 3 . 
Arsenious Arsenic Nitrous 
anhydride. anhydride. anhydride. 
