374 
VARIETIES. 
In smell, and in its therapeutical effect, the Hyraceum most resembles 
the Castoreum, a remedy which is decreasing in quantity every year, and 
may therefore be replaced by the former. A new article of export would 
thus be gained. Amongst the farmers, a solution of this substance is 
highly spoken of as an antispasmodic in hysterics, epilepsy, convulsions of 
children, St. Vitus' dance, in short, in spasmodic affections of every kind. — 
Pharm. Journ. } from Florce Capensis Medicce Prodromus, byL. Pappe, M.D. 
On Red Phosphorus. By Prof. A. Schrotter. — Two years ago, Schrotter 
showed that red phosphorus was not an oxide, but an allotropic modification 
of phosphorus, which can be effected not only under water and by the light 
of the sun, but also by a vacuum, and in gases which do not combine with 
phosphorus, and by the degrees of heat between 215 and 250° C. Further- 
more, he showed that red phosphorus is amorphous, not so fusible or distil- 
lable, nor emitting so much light, and considerably less soluble and com- 
bustible than common phosphorus. Lastly, and what is most remarkable, 
he also proved that it is transformed into common crystallizable phosphorus 
when heated to 260° C. under exclusion of air. 
Schrotter has since made the following discovery : if common phospho- 
rus be exposed, during several days in a closed glass tube, to an uninter- 
rupted heat, it not only changes into the red modification, but assumes even 
immediately a coherent form. In this latter state, the amorphous phospho- 
rus is reddish -brown, on the fractured surface iron-black, of an imperfect 
metallic brilliancy, brittle, and breaks easily with a perfect conchoidal 
fracture ; the fragments are irregular, and have pointed corners and sharp 
edges. The degree of hardness lies between that of calcspar and fluor- 
spar; the density at 17° C. = 2.089, the same quoted by Bottger for 
common phosphorus. The streak of this mass displays a red color of 
the pulverulent amorphous phosphorus. If exposed at common tem- 
perature to the influence of the atmospheric air, it remains unchanged.* 
If some tendency to acidulation on fusion manifests itself, it origi- 
nates from the presence of common phosphorus, which cannot easily 
be removed. 
With regard to common phosphorus, Schrotter has found that it decom- 
poses the water at a temperature of 250° to 2G0° C, so that spontaneously 
inflammable phosphurettcd hydrogen is developed. — Lon. Pharm Jour. May, 
1851, from Buchner's Repert., 1851, No. 19, p. 107. 
On the Phosphorescence of Phosphorus. By R. F. Marchand. — Berzelius 
first suggested the idea that the emission of light by phosphorus was 
merely the effect of evaporation, and the consequent molecular change of 
phosphorus. 
•Physiological experiments render it probable that red phosphorus may be ad- 
ministered in considerable doses without any injurious effects. 
