170 
RESEARCH FOR ARSENIC AND ANTIMONY. 
gave place to that sleekness of coat assigned as one of the 
effects produced by the administration of arsenic. It is a 
question how far the rosy looks of the Whitbeck children and 
the old age which a large proportion of the inhabitants of the 
village attains are to be attributed to the arsenic present in 
the water they drink. 
FACTS AND FALLACIES CONNECTED WITH THE RESEARCH 
FOR ARSENIC AND ANTIMONY; WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR 
A METHOD OF SEPARATING THESE POISONS FROM 
ORGANIC MATTER. 
By Alfred S. Taylor, M.D., F.H.S. 
(Continued from p. 101.) 
Arsenic as an Impurity in Copper. 
It has hitherto been considered that one of the great ad¬ 
vantages! of Reinsclv’s process was that, while hydrochloric 
acid might easily be obtained pure, no question could arise 
about the impurity of copper. The presence of arsenic in 
the purer forms of this metal was, until 1859, either not sus¬ 
pected or wholly ignored by chemists of the highest au¬ 
thority. It now turns out that there is no kind of copper 
available for use which is free from arsenic; and some kinds 
of foil and wire hitherto used, and still employed by analysts 
of repute, contain arsenic united to copper as arsenide in 
comparatively large proportion. As this question is of con¬ 
siderable importance, not only in reference to the present, 
but the future emploj^ment of this useful process in judicial 
investigations: and, from causes which I need not here enter 
into, it has not hitherto received that calm attention which it 
merits, I shall endeavour to lay before the reader the facts 
which I have ascertained regarding the presence and influence 
of this impurity in a medico-legal analysis. 
In turning to Reinsch’s original report of his discovery, it 
will be found that, while he enforces attention to the purity 
of the acid employed, he merely directs that the copper should, 
previously to use, be cleaned with nitric acid, washed in 
water, and rubbed dry with filtering-paper. These are all 
the precautions given by the discoverer in reference to the 
selection of the copper. In fact, upon his plan, any copper 
might be used, provided it had a clean surface. The test 
which he employed to determine the purity of his materials 
was that which has been in use among toxicologists up to the 
present day, namely, before introducing the suspected sub- 
