PREPARATIONS OF MANGANESE. 
297 
ART. LXV.— ON SOME PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS OF 
MANGANESE. 
By William Procter, Jr. 
Within a short period the attention of medical men has been 
attracted to the salts of manganese as remedial agents, chiefly 
through the published views of M. Hannon, contained in the 
Revue Medico- Chirurgicale de Paris for June 1849, where an 
account of several pharmaceutical preparations of the metal 
may be found. The American Journal of the Medical 
Sciences for January and April of the present year contains a 
translation of M. Hannon's observations, but as the author 
assumes that the apothecary is provided with pure sulphate of 
manganese, from which to make the other salts he describes, 
and does not give very eligible processes for several of 
the preparations recommended, it will be better to begin at the 
native black oxide, which is cheap and readily obtainable from 
the druggists, and describe the most convenient processes for 
obtaining the salts. The quantities mentioned are purposely 
small to suit those pharmaceutists who may incline to supply 
themselves. 
Carbonate of Manganese. Take a pound of black oxide of 
manganese, of good quality, in fine powder, put it in a porce- 
lain or stone ware dish, placed on a sand bath, or other source 
of heat, pour on it two pints of common muriatic acid, and stir 
them well. Chlorine gas is evolved, which should be avoided 
by the operator, by performing the operation under a chimney, 
or furnace hood, or in the open air. Muriatic acid should be 
added from time to time, until all is dissolved, but the earthy 
impurities. The solution of chloride of manganese, thus ob- 
tained, contains free muriatic acid and sesquichloride of iron, 
to get rid of which, proceed as follows. Make a strong solu- 
tion of carbonate of soda, add it gradually to the solution of 
manganese until the excess of acid is neutralized ; the carbo- 
nate of manganese at first thrown down being redissolved, 
