POISONING BY OXALIC ACID AND STRYCHNINE. 
643 
spirit of nitre. In the former the supernatant liquid is now (three weeks after 
the experiment) quite colourless, and in the latter is of a pale wine-colour, but 
of a slightly browner tint than sherry. 
Finally, I hope that the name of Mr. Miller will not be forgotten in connection 
with the first reliable process for the detection of this shameful form of adulte¬ 
ration, and that he himself will receive the thanks of all honest members of the 
pharmaceutical community. 
Dublin, May 10 th. 
SPONTANEOUS OXIDATION OF AMORPHOUS (FED) 
PHOSPHORUS. 
BY TIIOS. B. GROVES, F.C.S. 
Perhaps the spontaneous oxidation of amorphous (red) phosphorus is not so 
well established a fact but that the following particulars may prove interesting, 
more especially since one of our best class-books, the ninth edition of Fownes’s 
4 Chemistry,’ states, without qualification, 44 that amorphous phosphorus has no 
tendency to combine with the oxygen of the air.” 
I have been accustomed for some years to use this variety for the preparation 
of medicinal phosphoric acid (vide Pliarm. Journ. vol. xvi. p. 509). Two years 
ago, the bottle in which it was kept received a blow on its side, which produced 
a starred fracture, with a central hole the size of a large shot. This was not 
considered important, so the bottle remained in use, and continued to occupy 
its old position on a shelf in the warehouse, exposed to diffuse daylight only. 
For a year or more it presented its pristine appearance, but more recently I ob¬ 
served it to be getting damp, and on proceeding a fortnight since to take some 
from the bottle I found it covered with a layer, a third of an inch thick, of dense 
acid. The odour of oxidizing phosphorus, was very pronounced, but the con¬ 
tents of the bottle were not luminous in the dark. The acid was washed from 
the unaltered phosphorus, and examined. It consisted of phosphoric and phos¬ 
phorous acids in the proportion of 5 eq. of the former to 2 eq. of the latter, 
and the quantity was such as would result from the oxidation of more than 
eleven drachms of phosphorus,-—about a sixth of the whole contents of the 
bottle. 
The relative proportions of the two oxides of phosphorus were ascertained by 
comparing the results of two estimations by magnesia, one before, the other after 
peroxidation by chlorine, from which it seems that the mixed and diffused 
completely form the so-called phosphatic acid (4P0 5 -fP0 3 ) of Pelletier and 
Dulong. 
I am quite at a loss to account for any sudden change from stability to insta • 
bility, and am consequently disposed to believe that the change had been, from 
the first admission of air, advancing with a regularly accelerated speed , and that 
hence arose the apparent suddenness of it. 
POISONING BY OXALIC ACID AND STRYCHNINE. 
TO THE EDITOR OE THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir.—-If the following report will be worth a place in the pages of the 4 Phar¬ 
maceutical Journal,’ it may form a permanent record of a rather extraordinary 
case of poisoning which occurred here a few days ago. A woman about thirty- 
five years of age, of dissipated habits, applied at the shop of a chemist in this 
town for oxalic acid, for the stated purpose of destroying mice. She was told 
