PROCESS  FOR  OBTAINING  AND  PURIFYING  GLYCERINE.  35 
or  suspends  the  vegetable  alkaloids  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
aqueous  liquids,  and  at  the  same  time  the  resulting  products  may 
be  used  for  the  same  purposes  as  though  mixed  with  oil.  Thus, 
the  salts  of  morphia  dissolve  in  it  completely,  even  cold,  in  all 
when  hot,  but  when  cold,  separates  into  clots,  which  when  tritu- 
rated with  the  supernatant  liquid,  give  it  the  consistence  of  a 
cerate  very  useful  for  frictions  and  embrocations.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  salts  of  brucine,  strychnine,  veratrine,  and  most  prepara- 
tions of  the  same  order,  which  enables  us  to  consider  that  we 
have  now,  if  not  medicinal  oils  with  a  vegetable  alkaloid  base,  at 
least  a  series  of  new  preparations  which  will  fulfil  a  perfectly 
analogous  use  in  therapeutics." 
M.  Cap,  in  his  second  paper  (Chemist,  Oct.,  1854),  states  that 
he  employed  glycerine  of  28  Beaume*,  or  containing  88  per  cent, 
of  anhydrous  glycerine,  and  speaks  of  it  as  a  solvent  of  sulphuret 
of  potassium,  and  sulphuret  of  lime,  of  iodine,  iodide  of  sulphur, 
iodide  of  potassium,  iodide  of  mercury,  of  some  chlorides,  and  of 
quinine,  and  sulphate  of  quinine. 
In  the  Chemist  of  February,  1855,  Dr.  Crawcour,  of  New 
Orleans,  states  that  for  twelve  months  past,  he  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  using  glycerine  very  extensively  in  those  cases  requiring 
cod-liver  oil,  in  which  the  nauseous  taste  of  the  latter  medicine 
rendered  its  exhibition  impossible,  and  that  now,  in  his  practice, 
it  had  entirely  superseded  cod-liver  oil. 
In  a  paper  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Royal  Institution  of 
30th  March,  1855,  by  the  Rev.  John  Barlow,  F.  R.  S.,  atten- 
tion was  again  drawn  to  the  great  preservative  power  of  gly- 
cerine upon  meat.  On  this  occasion  Mr.  Barlow  showed  speci- 
mens of  flesh  which  had  been  immersed,  some  partially  and  some 
wholly,  in  glycerine,  for  more  than  a  month.  I  can  answer  for 
the  flesh  having  appeared  to  be  perfectly  fresh. 
M.  Cap,  worked  upon  the  waste  liquors  of  soap  and  stearic 
candle  works,  which  liquors  he  had  first  to  concentrate.  Hi& 
process  was  shortly  this  :  He  used  sulphuric  acid  to  separate  the 
lime,  and  continued  boiling  and  agitation  to  drive  off  the  volatile 
fat  acids,  removing  any  excess  of  sulphuric  acid  by  means  of 
carbonate  of  lime;  allowing  the  liquor  to  cool  at  different  densi- 
ties, so  as  to  deposit  sulphate  of  lime ;  and,  after  final  concentra- 
tion, treating  and  filtering  with  washed  anitnal  charcoal. 
