324 
COMMERCIAL BROMIDE OF POTASSIUM. 
of carbon seems to be a fair test of ascertaining the value of commercial bro¬ 
mide of potassium. 
Swinton Street, Gray's Inn Road. 
COMMERCIAL BROMIDE OE POTASSIUM. 
BY MR. C. IJMNEY. 
The adulteration of bromide of potassium noticed in the ‘ Chemical News ’ 
of the 19th, by Mr. Fewtrell, is of the greatest importance, both to the phar¬ 
maceutist and medical man ; more especially as the adulteration with iodide is 
not only found in the so-called “ French bromide,” but even in the salt sold by 
some of the principal manufacturing chemists in London. 
In August last, my attention was called to a sample of bromide of potassium, 
returned by a country druggist, with a statement that a medical man (whom he 
had supplied with the salt) noticed all the symptoms produced by iodine upon 
his patient. 
I made a qualitative examination of it, and found it contained a large propor¬ 
tion of iodide. 
I immediately procured samples from five of the principal manufacturing 
chemists in London (who professed to make the salt) ; of these only one was 
pure, and this was charged by its manufacturer 6 per cent, less than the impure 
salt of the other makers. 
It is therefore advisable for every pharmaceutist to test his bromide of potas¬ 
sium before using it. This he can readily do by dissolving some of the salt in 
water, adding to the solution starch, and subsequently a few drops of chlorine 
water, when if any iodide be present a blue colour will be produced. Although 
the bromine is set free as well as the iodine, still the bromine does not produce 
a blue with starch. Nitric acid may be used in the place of chlorine water, but 
it is not so delicate a test. Chloride of palladium added to solution of the salt 
containing iodide will give a precipitate of iodide of palladium, the bromide 
being left in solution ; this affords a ready means for the quantitative determi¬ 
nation of the iodide present. 
40, Alders gate Street. 
STATE OF PHARMACY IN FRANCE. 
BY MR. CHARLES EKIN. 
"Whilst questions regarding the vending and safe keeping of poisons, and 
the education and necessary qualifications of chemists, are engrossing the 
attention of the pharmaceutical world, it may perhaps be to our advantage if 
we inquire into the state of Pharmacy in France, for it may be, that we shall 
find in the system carried out there many points that we should do well to 
adopt; and we are the more led to expect this from the results of their sys¬ 
tem, for we find that the statistics ranging over the last ten years, of the 
Morgue in Paris, and published a few weeks ago in the ‘ Times,’ show that in 
a number of about 1700 suicides, seven only were the result of poison. We 
have but to compare these with like statistics in our own country, to see how 
very much the comparison is in favour of France. 
Believing the subject to be one that would be likely to interest the readers 
of this Journal, I wrote to a friend of mine, a pharmacien at Montauban, in the 
south of France, requesting him to give me such information as he might 
