466 
NITROPHENIC  ACIDS. 
however,  should  not  be  very  old,  because  then  the  blood  has 
attained  a  deep  color,  which  the  oxygenated  water  does  not 
change, — Pharm.  Journ.^  London^  July^  1869. 
NITROPHENIC  ACIDS. 
By  Joseph  Hirsh. 
Ever  since  the  discovery  of  the  valuable  antizymotic  and  dis- 
infecting properties  of  carbolic  acid,  its  production  in  the  highest 
degree  of  purity  has  been  aimed  at,  and,  luckily,  with  signal 
effect.  The  good  fortune  of  producing  this  substance  perfectly 
pure  does  not  consist  in  the  sought-for  acquisition  of  the  ne  plm 
ultra  disinfectant  which  its  final  purity  promised,  but  rather  in 
the  discovery  that  its  accompanying  sister  alcohols  of  the  cresy- 
lie  and  xylic  series,  rejected  so  far  as  worthless,  cumbersome 
appendages,  possess  superior  antizymotic  qualities,  and  the  nu- 
merous good  results  ascribed  to  the  use  of  carbolic  acid  were  in 
reality  due  to  the  presence  of  the  other  alcohols  mentioned, 
which  even  to-day  may  be  found  in  the  bulk  of  the  carbolic  acid 
m  market,  of  which  the  perfectly  pure  fills  only  a  portion.  In 
practice,  the  dark,  impure  creosote  was  preferred  to  the  light 
colored,  even  before  the  above  constituents  of  the  same  had  been 
thoroughly  studied;  experience  having  demonstrated  the  result, 
-not  yet  viewed  by  the  light  of  science. 
Of  equal  date  with  the  birthday  of  the  fame  of  carbolic  acid 
as  a  disinfectant,  are  the  last  honors  paid  to  chlorine,  nitric  acid, 
and  their  compounds  for  the  same  purpose ;  and  they  are  only 
•employed  where  their  low  price  is  an  offset,  though  a  question- 
able one,  to  the  use  of  phenic  acid.  It  has  even  been  stated 
that,  as  a  disinfectant,  carbolic  acid  and  the  mineral  acids  men- 
tioned should  never  be  used  jointly  ;  the  suggestion  having  been 
made,  a  priori,  from  the  consideration  that  in  such  a  union  the 
carbolic  acid  would  lose  its  individuality.  This  reasoning  was 
correct,  but  it  lacked  the  basis  of  experiments  to  prove  that  the 
resulting  compound  did  not  possess  the  azymotic  effects  of  carbo- 
lic acid  to  a  considerable  extent. 
Having  kst  year  experimented  on  the  modus  operandi  of  car- 
bolic acid  (a  brief  review  of  the  experiments  having  been  pub- 
