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CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  TOXICOLOGY. 
From  a  mass  weighing  5  oz.,  containing  1-40  grain  —  1-1000 
per  cent.  ==  1-100000  part  of  phosphorus,  3  oz.  may  be  distilled 
off,  which  lasts  over  a  half  hour  without  cessation  of  the  lumina- 
tion.  In  one  experiment  the  distillation  was  stopped  at  the  end 
of  half  an  hour,  and  the  flask  left  open  in  contact  with  the  air 
for  two  weeks ;  when  the  distillation  was  commenced  again  the 
lumination  was  as  perfect  as  before.  If  ether,  alcohol  or  tur- 
pentine are  present,  they  will  prevent  the  lumination,  which 
commences  as  soon  as  they  have  passed  over. 
At  the  bottom  of  the  last  bottle,  globules  of  phosphorus  are 
found ;  5  oz.  substance,  containing  one-third  grain  phosphorus, 
gave  so  many  globules  that  one-tenth  part  of  them  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  distinguish  them  as  phosphorus.  Larger  quan- 
tities, which  contain  much  phosphorus,  may,  during  the  process 
of  distillation,  oxydize  sufficiently  that  phosphorus  acid  may  be 
found  by  nitrate  of  silver  and  bichloride  of  mercury.  But  this 
can  never  be  a  proof  for  poisoning  by  phosphorus,  unless  it  has 
been  found  itself. 
To  determine  the  volatility  of  phosphorus  and  phosphoric 
acid,  two  drachms  of  a  mixture  of  the  two  obtained  by  oxyda- 
tion  in  the  air,  were  distilled  several  times  with  water  ;  by  the 
magnesia-ammonia  test  not  a  trace  of  the  acids  could  be  found. 
But  nitrate  of  silver  was  colored  brown,  afterwards  precipitating 
some  imponderable  brown  floccules,  and  bichloride  of  mercury 
was  rendered  slightly  turbid.  The  distillate  of  diluted  phos- 
phoric acid,  with  a  little  dust  taken  from  an  unoccupied  room, 
and  of  a  small  piece  of  a  decayed  human  stomach,  with  water, 
gave  the  same  reactions,  on  which,  therefore,  in  forensic  analy- 
sis, no  reliance  can  be  based. — {Journal f.  PraJct.  Ohemie,  1855, 
No.  20.) 
Action  of  Med  Phosphorus, 
Eeynat  and  Lassaigne,  by  a  series  of  experiments,  have  found 
that  red  phosphorus  in  the  dose  of  5  grammes  is  not  poisonous 
to  dogs,  nor  to  birds  in  the  dose  of  3  centigrammes,  and  that  in 
general  it  is  without  action  on  the  mucous  membranes, — (RSp, 
de  Pharm.,  1854.) 
