ON AMERICAN BROMINE. 
97 
mine, evaporating to dryness, and heating the dried mass to 
a red heat to decompose the bromate of potassa which is 
mixed with the bromide. I consider this process the best, 
as it yields the purest salt in the most perfect crystals. 
Bromide of Iron. This salt is obtained by adding bro- 
mine to iron filings in excess under water, and submitting 
them to a moderate heat. When the liquid assumes a 
greenish yellow appearance it is filtered and evaporated 
rapidly to dryness in an iron vessel. Bromide of iron is a 
brick red, very deliquescent salt, of an acrid styptic taste, 
and requires to be kept closely stopped in glass vials. This 
bromide has been used quite extensively in Pittsburg, Pa., 
as a tonic and alterative, and is considered by many phy- 
sicians to be a highly efficacious preparation. This salt 
may be known by the liberation of bromine, by the addition 
of sulphuric acid. 
The bittern waters, in a very concentrated state, have been 
employed with decided advantage in this city as a counter 
irritant in rheumatic and neuralgic affections. The liquid 
contains some of the salts of bromine with a small quantity 
of iodine, besides chloride of sodium and other salts, and 
has a specific gravity of 1.419. After a few applications 
a plentiful crop of pustules are produced, which pass away 
in a short time after ceasing its use. There is little doubt 
that this article will prove to be an agent of considerable 
importance in the above named complaints. There are 
several other preparatinos of bromine which have occasion- 
ally been used in medicine ; they are prepared like the cor- 
responding iodides ; amon g these the bromide of sulphur 
has been used with advantage in cutaneous affections. It 
is formed by the direct union of its elements, — a compound 
of bromine and iodine, has been much used in daguerreotype 
operations. 
9* 
