THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
JANUARY,  185  8. 
PURIFICATION  OF  LIQUIDS  IN  THE  STATE  OF  VAPOR. 
NEW  APPARATUS  FOR  RECTIFYING  SPIRITS. 
By  Edward  R.  Squibb,  M.  D. 
Some  two  years  since  it  occurred  to  the  writer  that  various 
liquids  might  be  well  and  easily  purified  and  isolated,  during  the 
processes  for  their  production,  by  washing  the  vapor  as  produced, 
just  as  fixed  gases  have  long  been  washed  and  purified. 
The  first  practical  application  of  this  method  was  in  the  manu- 
facture of  ether,  wherein  the  vapors  from  the  still  were  made  to 
pass  first  through  milk  of  lime,  then  through  a  cooler  kept  at  a 
fixed  temperature,  and  then  through  dry  chloride  of  calcium. 
This  experiment  having  been  quite  successful,  the  application 
was  extended  to  the  processes  for  chloroform,  and  hyponitrous 
ether  (for  spirit  of  nitre)with  the  same  success.    The  conditions 
necessary  are  simply  that  the  vapor  shall  pass  into  the  purifying 
liquid  in  a  finely  divided  state,  as  through  a  delivery  tube  per- 
forated with  fine  holes ;  and  that  the  purifying  liquid  be  kept 
at  a  temperature  as  near  as  possible  to,  but  always  above  the 
boiling  point  of  the  liquid  whose  vapor  is  to  be  purified.    Or,  if 
the  purifying  agent  be  dry  that  the  vapor  be  passed  through  re- 
peated portions  of  it,  under  the  same  condition  of  temperature  of 
course.    Thus  these  purifiers  are  simply  introduced  between  the 
still  and  final  condenser  in  the  apparatus  for  manufacture. 
After  the  successful  application  of  this  method,  in  examining 
into  the  manufacture  of  alcohol  in  search  of  the  difficulty  there 
is  in  getting  a  spirit  that  is  free  from  the  grain  oil  impurities,  it 
appeared  to  the  writer  that  the  method  was  easily  applicable  to 
the  manufacture  of  "  Cologne  spirit,"  as  the  better  kind  of 
alcohol  is  now  called.  In  the  production  of  this  Cologne  spirit, 
the  rectifying  distillers  "leech"  the  whiskey  by  passing  it 
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