432 
CHARCOAL  AS  A  MEDIUM  OF  INHALATION. 
Among  those  which  have  fallen  under  my  notice  are  one  or 
two  that  have  led  me  to  make  a  few  experiments  ;  and  although 
these  are  trifling,  the  results  may  perhaps  be  considered  worth 
communicating. 
My  attention  having  been  called  to  the  advantages  offered  by 
charcoal  for  exhibiting  remedial  agents,  as  iodine,  &c.,  in  very 
minute  proportions,  by  inhalation,  I  was  somewhat  in  doubt 
whether  the  affinity  of  charcoal  for  iodine — which,  according  to 
M.  Bechi  and  M.  Magnes,  is  so  strong  as  not  to  be  overcome  by 
a  simple  solvent — might  not  render  useless  the  method  proposed, 
as  this  would  require  the  iodine  to  be  diffused  through  the  pores 
of  the  charcoal  in  a  very  finely  divided  state.  The  former  gen- 
tleman, in  his  practically  useful  paper  on  the  employment  of 
charcoal  as  an  economical  agent  for  separating  iodine  from  its 
natural  and  artificial  combinations,  detailed  in  the  Journal  de 
Pharmacie  for  July,  1851,  states  "  that  neither  hot  nor  cold 
water  removes  from  charcoal  the  slightest  trace  of  iodine."  It 
is  the  same  with  alcohol,  which  one  would  have  regarded  as  its 
true  solvent ;  but  quite  the  contrary  occurs  if  we  treat  iodized 
charcoal  with  a  substance  for  which  the  iodine  has  a  strong  af- 
finity, and  with  which  it  forms  an  intimate  combination — as  with 
solution  of  potash,  &c. 
M.  Magnes,  a  translation  of  whose  paper  appears  in  the 
Pharmaceutical  Journal  for  April,  1852,  states — "  I  intimately 
mixed  together  one  part  of  iodine  with  nine  parts  of  charcoal, 
only  retaining  its  hygrometric  water.  The  product  had  neither 
the  odor  nor  flavor  of  iodine ,  and  having  washed  it  on  a  filter,  I 
ascertained  that  the  water  that  passed  through  was  inodorous 
and  colorless,  and  that  it  did  not  give  a  blue  color  to  starch 
paste." 
I  first  employed  ordinary  wood  charcoal,  in  the  proportion 
used  by  M.  Magnes  (nine  parts  to  one  of  iodine),  and  found,  as 
he  states,  that  from  the  salts  of  the  alkalies  and  alkaline  earths 
contained  in  the  charcoal  it  was  all  converted  into  iodides  of  po- 
tassium and  calcium,  with  traces  of  iodates  of  potash  and  lime. 
I  then  used  charcoal  that  had  been  exhausted  with  hydrochlo- 
ric acid,  thoroughly  washed  and  dried,  and  treated  it  with  iodine 
in  the  same  proportion  (one  part  to  nine),  when  I  found  on  tritu- 
rating the  mixture  with  a  small  quantity  of  water,  and  throwing 
