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SUBSTANCE ANALOGOUS TO GUN COTTON. 
ART. LIV. ON THE TOXICAL AND OTHER PROPERTIES OF " A 
SUBSTANCE ANALOGOUS TO GUN COTTON."* 
By Wm. F. Jackson, M. D., of Brunswick, Maine. 
During the last few years there have been several very 
valuable discoveries, but perhaps no one of them has created 
more excitement among chemists of every country than 
that of gun cotton by Schonbein, in 1S46. No sooner had 
it been announced by him than various series of experiments 
were instituted, some of which resulted in the discovery of 
new substances, the value of which time alone can show. 
It is my purpose to call your attention to one of these sub- 
stances discovered by Mr. Sobrero, a distinguished Spanish 
chemist, and announced by him in the " Comptes Rendus" 
for February, 1S47. The article was copied into the "Lon- 
don Chemical Gazette," and attracted the attention of Mr. 
Morris Davis, an operative chemist of this city,t who was 
the first in this country to prepare and experiment upon it. 
It has also been prepared and experimented upon by one or 
two others ; and all concur in sayingthat it is a most power- 
ful excitant, and capable of producing the most injurious re- 
sults even when taken in very minute doses. How valuable 
it may prove as a therapeutical agent I am not prepared to 
say ; but when we consider how many of our most valua- 
ble remedies are the most virulent poisons, we have a right 
to infer that this may not be without its uses. Should it 
not prove valuable as a medicinal agent, it is certainly, in a 
physiological point of view, worthy of an extended and care- 
ful examination. 
Mode of Preparation. — The mode of preparing this sub- 
stance, given by Mr. Sobrero, is as follows : " When a 
•Extracted from an Inaugural Dissertation recently presented to 
the Faculty of Jefferson Medical College, 
t Philadelphia. 
