96 
ON AMERICAN BROMINE. 
enable them with very little labor to produce forty or fifty 
pounds of pure bromine per week. They have recently 
sent one hundred pounds of it to Europe, hoping to be able 
lo bring it in successful competition with the German and 
French article, which for the last few years has commanded 
such a high price as to be little used in this country as a 
medicinal agent — being chiefly consumed in the daguerreo- 
type process. This bromine has been pronounced by 
chemists here who have examined it, as purer than the 
European article as generally found in our markets. Its 
sensible properties are precisely similar to the foreign article, 
having the density, odour and colour belonging to this ele- 
ment. In one respect, however, I find a discrepancy. 
Bromine is stated by authors to be soluble in alcohol ; but I 
have been unable to effect a proper solution of the American 
article in this menstruum, as it appears to decompose either 
strong or diluted alcohol, uniting with it in all proportions, 
and when a quantity of bromine is suddenly introduced into 
this liquid, the reaction is so violent as to occasion flashes 
of light and violent ebullition, until the bromine entirely 
disappears, and the liquid becomes colourless, having pro- 
perties resembling ether, probably hydrobromic ether, inas- 
much as the acid which it contains is generated by the con- 
tact of bromine and alcohol. 
As a medicinal agent, bromine is sometimes employed in 
an uncombined state, mixed with syrup of sarsaparilla or 
other similar vehicle; but it has been more frequently ex- 
hibited in the forms of the bromides of potassium and of 
iron. Three processes have been employed in obtaining 
the former. The first by decomposing a solution of bro- 
mide of iron with carbonate of potassa, as directed by the 
London Pharmacopoeia ; the second by passing a current of 
hydrosulphuric acid into bromine under water, until all the 
free bromine has disappeared, and saturating the solution 
of hydrobromic acid with carbonate of potassa ; and lastly, 
by saturating a strong solution of caustic potassa with bro- 
