ON THE BUTTER OF ANTIMONY. 
79 
flat pieces. After the manna has been removed from the 
trees, it has further to be dried upon shelves before being 
packed in cases. The masses left adhering to the stems 
after removing the inserted leaves, are scraped off, and con- 
stitute the Manna cannelata in fragmentis. Cannelata, 
can. in fragm. and Capace are collected at the same time 
from one stem — the more Cannelata from the younger, and 
the more Capace or Gerace from the older part of the stem. 
In Sicily, the latter is designated in sortie, and is probably 
the most active. Dry and warm weather is essentially re- 
quisite for a good harvest. — Pharm. Journ.for Dec, from 
Hooker's Journal of Botany. 
ART. XXII. — OBSERVATIONS ON THE BUTTER OF ANTIMONY. 
By A. Larocque. 
Serullas has shown, in his treatise on the pharmaceutical 
preparations of antimony, that all these preparations contain 
arsenic, excepting tartar-emetic and the protochloride of 
antimony. It must therefore be interesting to pharmaceu- 
tists to learn how it is that these two combinations are ob- 
tained free from arsenic. The author first followed the di- 
rections of the French Codex for the preparation of the 
butter of antimony. 
To prepare this compound, sulphuret of antimony con- 
taining sulphuret of arsenic is usually employed. As soon 
as this is treated at a gentle heat with an excess of muriatic 
acid, sulphuretted hydrogen escapes, and a solution is ob- 
tained in which protochloride of antimony and a small quan- 
tity of sulphuret of arsenic are contained. This solution fur- 
nishes, on evaporation and distillation, the butter of anti- 
mony. In this distillation we first observe that muriatic 
acid with very little protochloride of antimony pass over; 
as soon as the temperature rises, the retort becomes coated 
7* 
