590 
Notes  on  Lithium. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pbarm. 
\  December,  1894. 
ence  in  1889,  the  substance  of  which  is  that  the  lithium  compounds 
"  owe  their  place  in  the  materia  medica  originally  to  the  observa- 
tion that,  as  compared  with  potash  or  soda,  a  smaller  amount  of 
lithia  suffices  to  form  a  soluble  salt  with  uric  acid,  and  that 
this  salt  is  more  readily  soluble  in  water  than  the  corresponding 
potassium  and  sodium  salts.  From  a  chemical  point  of  view,  its 
greater  antacid  or  neutralizing  power  presents  itself  as  owing  to  its 
low  atomic  weight."  "It  follows  from  the  atomic  weight  of 
lithium  and  potassium  that  74  parts  of  lithium  carbonate  possess 
the  same  acid-saturating  power  and  are  likely  to  dissolve  as  much 
uric  acid  as  138  parts  of  potassium  carbonate."  This  saturating 
power,  however,  is  confined  only  to  the  carbonate  and  indirectly 
to  the  citrate  (which  becomes  converted  into  the  carbonate  within 
the  organism)  ;  but  "  it  is  extended  to  a  number  of  mineral  waters 
containing  lithia,  generally  mere  traces  of  it,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  what  there  is  of  lithium  in  these  waters  generally  occurs 
there  as  chloride  or  sulphate,  salts  which  neither  directly  nor  indi- 
rectly act  as  alkalies  and  possess  no  solvent  action  on  uric  acid." 
While  such  rational  arguments  are  convincing  to  all  reasoning 
men  who,  in  fact,  never  entertained  a  different  opinion  to  that 
expressed  by  Siebold,  they  are  eminently  dissatisfactory  to  those 
who  prate  of  "  God-given,"  "  Heaven-endowed  "  fountains  of  health, 
"  medicines  wrought  in  the  laboratory  of  Nature,"  and  who  are 
ready  to  apotheosize  lithium  and  place  it  in  the  firmament  alongside 
of  Hygeia,  or  with  the  benign  goddess  of  Greek  mythology  who 
hovered  over  mineral  springs  and  endowed  them  with  healing  vir- 
tues. This  idea  seems  still  to  be  a  favorite  one  with  some  mineral- 
spring  proprietors,  whose  cards  and  advertisements  display  con- 
spicuously the  winged  female  with  scanty  drapery  and  small  regard 
for  the  proprieties. 
The  occurrence  of  lithium  in  natural  waters  is  necessarily  limited, 
not  merely  on  account  of  the  limited  amount  in  which  it  is  found, 
but  more  especially  on  account  of  its  existence  always  in  combina- 
tion with  the  most  insoluble  constituents  of  the  primordial  rocks.  One 
need  not,  therefore,  be  surprised  at  finding  that  the  average  con- 
tent of  the  lithium  salts  in  mineral  springs  is  not  more  than  four 
parts  in  100,000  of  water,  or  say  one  grain  in  three  and  one-quarter 
pints. 
"  Despite  the  long  list  of  '  lithia  springs,'  whose  advertisements 
