April 1, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
783 
drug; therefore, all it realizes over and above this 
price goes towards increasing the revenue, and is 
a profit to the Government. The crop is appor¬ 
tioned in equal quantities to each month for public 
competition, and its extent is, in a great measure, 
regulated by the demand, as in the case of Malwa. 
No private individuals are allowed to store opium 
in these godowns ; all so found is looked upon as 
smuggled, and confiscated. When a buyer wishes 
to export his purchases, they are shipped for him by 
the Government agent, and delivery cannot be taken 
in Calcutta.” 
About fifty years ago, when Patna opium had 
been introduced and had made some way in Sze- 
chuen and the neighbouring provinces, it fetched 
double its weight in silver, and the people smoked it 
cut in slices and rolled up in paper like a cigar. At 
the present time there seems little doubt but that its 
consumption is increasing rapidly, more especially 
among the labouring classes. It is said that already 
eight men out of every ten smoke it, and quite one- 
lialf of the women. Irrespective of the moral bear¬ 
ings of the subject, there can be no doubt that if a 
general and open system of poppy cultivation -were 
allowed in China, it would become a higlily remune¬ 
rative branch of agriculture. 
ftjjauto for Stutunts. 
CHEMICAL NOTES TO THE PHARMACOPEIA. 
BY WILLIAM A. TILDEX, B.SC. LOXD. 
DEMONSTRATOR OF PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY TO THE 
PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 
Ferre Oxidum Magneticum. — [§ Magnetic oxide 
of iron, Fe 3 0 4 , combined with about 20 per cent, of 
water of hydration and containing some peroxide of 
iron.] 
Sulphate of iron is dissolved in water and mixed 
with solution of persulphate of iron [free from nitric 
acid] and the mixture is precipitated, boiling, by so¬ 
lution of soda. The precipitate, at first brown, be¬ 
comes black on standing, and is collected, washed 
thoroughly and dried at a gentle heat. 
The iron salts must be employed in such propor¬ 
tion as to contain one atom of iron in the ferrous 
state, and two atoms in the ferric state. Thus, if 
solution of persulphate of iron be not ready, a quan¬ 
tity of sulphate may be divided into three equal 
parts, and two of them boiled with sufficient sul¬ 
phuric and nitric acids to convert them into ferric 
salt. Excess of nitric acid must be driven off by 
evaporation. 
The reaction is as follows:— 
FeS0 4 + 2NaHO) _ f Fe2 HO + Na 2 S0 4 
Fe 2 3 S0 4 -f GNaHOj “ (Fe 2 6HO + 3Na 2 S0 4 
= Fe 3 0 4 + 4H 2 0 + 4Na 2 S0 4 . 
This compound may be regarded as a kind of salt 
in which the iron fulfils both the basylous and acidu¬ 
lous function Fe" (Fe'" 2 0 4 ). This view of its consti¬ 
tution is countenanced by the fact that ferric hydrate 
acts towards metallic iron as an acid; freshly pre¬ 
pared and boiled with iron filings, it evolves hydro¬ 
gen and gives rise to the production of magnetic 
oxide:— 
Ferrous oxide.FeO 
Ferric oxide. 
Ferrous ferrite.Fe 3 0 4 
Magnetic oxide of iron is an important and abun¬ 
dant ore of iron ; it forms the loadstone. 
The magnetic oxide of iron, dissolved in acids, 
forms solutions which give the reactions both of a 
ferrous and of a ferric salt. Thus a dark blue pre¬ 
cipitate forms with yellow as well as with the red 
prussiate of potash. The latter is Turnbull’s blue 
(see Ferri Iodidum) ; the former is Prussian blue, 
a ferric ferrocyanide:— 
2 (Fe 2 Cl 6 ) + 3(K 4 FeCy 6 ) 
= 12KC1 + F e 4 (Fe Cy 6 ) 3 . 
[§ Two grams dissolved in hydrochloric acid con¬ 
tinue to give a blue precipitate with the red prussiate 
of potash until 8'3 c. c. of the volumetric solution of 
bichromate of potash have been added.] This 
amount corresponds to very nearly 9, or more pre¬ 
cisely 8 965 per cent., of ferrous oxide. The calcu¬ 
lation is precisely similar to that explained under 
ferri carb. sacch.:— 
G FeO. 
20000 : 8*3 :: = 432 : T793 
and 2 : 100 : : T793 : 8‘965. 
PHARMACY IN PARIS DURING THE 
INSURRECTION. 
The advantages possessed by iron revolving shut¬ 
ters have generally been admitted, but few, I think, 
ever found, them more useful than did the shop¬ 
keepers and pharmacists in the neighbourhood of 
the Place Vendome on Wednesday last. Since the 
horrors of the siege, Paris had been gradually sliding 
into the old grooves; strangers reappeared, letters 
and telegrams seemed no longer a strange and new 
pleasure, and commerce had reinstated herself. It 
was unfortunately but the lull before the storm. 
Three days before, the Place Vendome had been oc¬ 
cupied by the insurgent battalions of the National 
Guard, the pretending friends of order, who, at the 
approach of a peaceful unarmed deputation headed 
by the journalist Henri de Pene, discharged more 
than 500 shots into the crowd, killing over twenty 
and wounding about sixty persons. In an instant 
the pavement w T as red with blood, and the dead and 
dying were carried into the neighbouring pharmacies, 
to receive what attentions could be given to them, 
awaiting the arrival of the surgeons. Ambulance 
stretchers were soon procured, and mournful proces¬ 
sions, headed by men bearing large white flags with 
the Geneva cross, traversed the streets of Paris, 
exciting the hate and loathing with which all orderly 
citizens regard the resumption of a new reign of 
terror at the hands of the Belleville insurgents. 
All business, excepting the mournful duty of stanch¬ 
ing death-wounds, is over for the present in this 
usually gay quarter of Paris. Half-a-dozen blood¬ 
stained mattresses piled in a comer of nearly every 
pharmacy tell their own sad tale, and the once 
white marble floors are variegated and slippery as 
the pavement of the Piazza San Marco, at Venice, on 
a rainy day. All the shops are closed, and peremp¬ 
tory commands to shut all windows fronting the 
street are issued in loud tones, accompanied by me¬ 
naces from loaded cliassepots. In comparison with 
