ON SULPHATE OP POTASH. 
27 
ART. X. — ON THE SOLUBILITY AND SOME OTHER 
PROPERTIES OF SULPHATE OF POTASH. 
By Mr. Theophilus Redwood. 
The recent case of poisoning with sulphate of potash, 
has caused the attention of medical men and others to be 
directed to the medicinal effects and chemical properties of 
this salt. The subject was noticed at the last evening 
meeting of this Society, and several communications 
respecting it have appeared in the journals within the last 
few weeks. The deleterious effects which have sometimes 
ensued on administering the salt in doses of two drachms 
or more, have been ascribed, by some persons, to its sparing 
solubility ; by others, to this — in connexion with the angu- 
lar form of the particles of which it consists, when re- 
duced to powder. 
Authors differ materially with regard to the extent of 
solubility of sulphate of potash in water. According to 
Turner and Phillips, it requires sixteen parts of water for 
its solution at 60° ; Brande says, sixteen parts of cold 
water; Murray, seventeen parts of water, at 60°; while 
Gay Lussac, whose statement appears to be adopted by 
Graham and Kane, describes it as soluble in nine parts of 
water, at 60° Fahr. 
It was mentioned in this room by Mr. Gallard, at our 
last meeting, that the solubility of sulphate of potash in 
water, may be increased by the addition of a portion of 
sesquicarbonate of soda — a circumstauce which was at 
the same time ascribed to the formation of new salts in the 
solution. The correctness of this fact and its explanation 
has, however,been since denied in a letter published in the 
Medical Gazette of October 27th, by Mr. Mowbray, who 
says, that sulphate of potash is not more soluble in solution 
