6 
REVIEW OF THE DUBLIN PHARMACOPOEIA, 
taricacid or cream of tartar as an agent for raising bread and cakes* 
Its most usual impurity is carbonate of soda, arising from the im- 
perfect saturation with carbonic acid. When present, the carbonate 
gives a decided alkaline, disagreeable taste, and if in the amount of 
one to three per cent, will afford a white precipitate by sulphate of 
magnesia, and a reddish brown one by corrosive sublimate. Heated 
to redness for fifteen minutes it loses 37 per cent, and when de- 
composed with sulphuric acid in a flask, it should lose about half 
its weight of carbonic acid. Sulphate of soda may get in 
this salt by using a carbonate contaminated with that salt in 
making the bicarbonate of soda. It is indicated by nitrate of ba- 
ryta yielding a precipitate insoluble in nitric acid. Chlorides are 
detected by nitrate of silver. The great cheapness of bicarbonate of 
soda is one reason that it is less adulterated than many others, as 
no salt not detected by taste or insolubility is sufficiently cheap to 
use for this purpose. 
Carbonate of Soda. — Carbonate of soda when designed for medi- 
cal use, should be examined as to its quality. When intended for 
the physician it is best to select the well defined flat rhombic crys- 
tals, which are more certainly pure than the irregular masses. — 
When sulphate of soda and chloride of sodium are present, (they 
are the most usual impurities.) they are indicated by dissolving the 
carbonate in pure diluted nitric acid to saturation, and adding 
nitrate of baryta or nitrate of silver. As carbonate of soda 
contains 63 per cent of water which it partially loses with great 
readiness by efflorescence, attention should be given to this fact in 
using it in chemical recipes, and in prescriptions. 
W. P., Jr. 
THE PHARMACOPCEIA OF THE KING AND QUEEN'S COLLEGE OF 
PHYSICIANS, IN IRELAND, 1850. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, Grafton 
Street, Booksellers to the University, pp. 191, octavo. 
The last edition of the Dublin Pharmacopoeia was published in 
1826. Three years ago the College of Physicians, of Ireland, 
deeming it proper that the work should be revised and brought up 
to the present state of Materia Medica and Pharmacy, commenced 
