NASCENT OXYGEN A TEST FOR ANILINE. 
159 
out to effect their condensation, instead of allowing them to 
escape into the atmosphere, by which it becomes empoisoned, 
and its injurious effects seen in the peculiar disease affecting 
the osseous tissue of animals, and the desolate appearance 
around the works through the destruction of vegetation. 
In connexion with this subject. Dr. Olding, referring to 
the conditional state of arsenic in vegetables, states that a 
year or two since he was called upon to examine into the 
cause of death of some cattle at Swansea, which he found to 
be arsenic, the soil where they were fed being rich in this 
mineral. The grass was also found by him to contain arse¬ 
nic, but in the turnips grown in the same soil he could not 
detect the presence of any, although the soil contained 
several grains of arsenic in the pound. In this he grew some 
radishes, but could find none of the poison in them. He 
adds, that the arsenic was in a very insoluble state in the 
soil, rendered so, in all probability, from the large quantity 
of iron existing in it. 
NASCENT OXYGEN A TEST FOR ANILINE. 
Some instances have recently occurred of nitro-benzole, 
now very generally employed, being the cause of death, and 
Dr. Letheby has found that in the body it becomes changed 
into aniline. A verv delicate test for this latter, he states in 
the Chemical Neivs, to be nascent oxygen, and the best means 
of applying it is by the agency of the galvanic battery. If a 
drop or even half a drop of a solution of 1 part aniline in 
1000 of dilute sulphuric acid be placed on a clean piece of 
platinum, and touched with the negative pole of the galvanic 
battery, while the positive pole is in contact with the plati¬ 
num, the liquid acquires a bluish, then a violet, and finally a 
pink colour. The colours are heightened in intensity by con¬ 
centration. 
Strychnia comports itself in a similar way, but the doctor 
says, “ the two alkaloids are distinguished, not merely by the 
volatility of aniline, and its appearing in a medico-legal 
inquiry in the distillate from the suspected matters, but also 
by the circumstance that while strychnia requires the con¬ 
centrated acid to show its violet colouration on platinum, 
aniline is best seen with the dilute acid.” 
Other sources of nascent oxygen may be resorted to, but 
this is the most sensitive and most manageable. 
