ON  A  BROWN  HAIR  DYE. 
possess  medicinal  properties,  which  are  simply  diuretic.  A 
preparation  which  would  represent  these  properties  might  be 
made  by  separating  the  volatile  oil  by  distillation,  drying  the 
cubebs,  and  preparing  with  alcohol  a  resinous  extract. 
ON  A  BROWN  HAIR  DYE. 
By  George  McDonald. 
Cairo,  III,  April  Uth,  1870. 
Editor  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  Philadelphia : 
The  preparation  of  a  lead  and  sulphur  dye  for  the  hair,  in 
which  the  ingredients  would  be  in  a  state  of  perfect  solution,  has 
long  been  as  great  a  puzzle  to  druggists  and  other  interested 
parties,  as  the  ^'quadrature  of  the  circle"  to  mathematicians,  or 
"perpetual  motion"  to  dabblers  in  mechanics.  But,  unlike 
these,  the  problem  under  consideration  is  really  (although,  per- 
haps, unfortunately,)  capable  of  solution. 
Some  years  ago,  when  lead  and  sulphur  hair  dyes  were  more^ 
in  demand  than  they  are  at  the  present  time,  the  confident  as- 
sertion of  those  who  were  supposed  to  know,  that  such  a  prepa- 
tion  free  from  sulphur  sediment  was  a  chemical  absurdity 5. 
prompted  me  to  experiment  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  whether 
this  were  indeed  true. 
The  well-known  fact  that  a  soluble  compound  of  lead  aR#  sul- 
phur could  not  be  obtained  by  the  decomposition  of  a  soluble 
lead  salt  by  a  soluble  sulphuret,  or,  in  other  words,  the  insolu- 
bility of  the  sulphuret  of  lead,  was  regarded  as  an  undubitable 
proof  of  the  folly  of  such  an  undertaking.  But  chemistry  is  at 
the  present  day  so  rich  in  resources  that  it  is  hardly  safe  to  as- 
sert that  any  chemical  problem  is  impossible. 
There  is  a  class  of  salts  known  as  the  hyposulphites,  many  of 
which  are  freely  soluble  in  water,  and  which  are  readily  con- 
verted by  absorption  of  oxygen  into  sulphate  of  the  base  and 
free  sulphur.  It  is  in  the  use  of  these  salts  that  the  key  to  the 
enigma  lies. 
We  learn  from  chemical  text-books  that  hyposulphite  of  lead 
is  insoluble  in  water,  and  if  we  were  to  rest  satisfied  with  what 
knowledge  we  can  obtain  of  its  chemical  behaviour  from  them,  we 
