THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY, 
SEPTEMBER,  1857. 
HYDRARGYRUM  CUM  GRETA,  AND  PILULiE  HYDRARGYRL 
By  Edward  R.  Squibb,  M.  D. ,  U.  S.  Navy. 
Assistant  Director  U.  S.  Naval  Laboratory,  New  York. 
These  mercurial  preparations  which  are  so  valuable  in  con- 
sequence of  their  gentle,  mild  and  manageable  action,  depend 
for  their  characteristic  qualities  upon  the  form  in  which  the 
mercury  is  contained  in  them,  and  the  preparations  are  mild  and 
manageable  just  in  proportion  as  the  metal  is  properly  com- 
minuted, and  free  from  oxidation. 
It  is  quite  common  to  hear  physicians  complain  that  they 
have  been  forced,  within  a  few  years  past,  to  abandon  the  use  of 
mercury  with  chalk,  because  it  so  commonly  excites  vomiting 
and  gastro  enteritic  irritation ;  whereas,  in  the  practice  that  has 
come  under  the  personal  observation  of  the  writer,  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  Pharmacopoeia  has  never  produced  any  such  effects. 
The  writer  has  therefore  long  coincided  in  the  belief  that  these 
bad  effects  are  due  to  the  oxidation  of  the  mercury  in  the  short 
and  faulty  processes  often  adopted  in  preparing  the  medicine. 
In  a  paper  from  the  Editor  of  this  Journal  (Vol.  22,  pp.  113. 
et  seq.,)  it  was  pretty  clearly  shown  that  such  conclusions  were 
correct  and  reasonable;  and  it  then  only  remained  to  be  deter- 
mined whether  these  labor-saving  processes  were  the  only  causes 
of  oxidation;  and  to  obtain  some  easy  practical  method  of 
ascertaining  the  condition  and  quality  of  any  given  sample. 
In  the  preparation  of  mercury  with  chalk,  there  are  two 
opposite  conditions  equally  to  be  avoided.  When  the  trituration 
is  in  sufficient  there  is  no  oxidation,  but  the  mercury  remains  in 
almost  its  original  inert  condition,  although  the  globules  may 
not  be  visible  to  ordinary  observation  even  with  a  lens.  The 
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