ON THE PREPARATION OF IODIDE OF IRON. 
59 
lution. The following is the method which I have adopted 
for preparing the Syrup.* 
" Take two hundred and fifty-two grains of Iodine ; forty- 
eight grains, or any quantity, of pure soft Iron wire, perfectly 
free from rust, and twelve ounces and a half of distilled water. 
Boil them together in a narrow-necked flask, until the fluid be- 
comes nearly colorless ; filter the solution into a deep 
capsule, kept hot; evaporate to two-thirds, and add as much 
refined sugar as will make a thick Syrup, aiding its solution 
with a gentle heat. The Syrup should be so thick as to ad- 
mit of the addition of as much boiling distilled water as will 
make the whole twelve ounces and a half, so that each fluid- 
drachm of the Syrup will contain three grains of the Iodide of 
Iron. It is unnecessary to preserve the Syrup in stoppered bot- 
tles, or to seclude it from the light." 
Whether the boiling may render it necessary to add water 
* A Syrup of Iodide of Iron was suggested in Bachner's " Repertoire 
de Phannacie," in the year 1839, and is mentioned in the " Journal de 
Pharmacie," Jan. 1840. But the mode of preparing it is objectionable, a 
fact which is rendered obvious by the following sentence appended to the 
notice: " Hengel has observed, that this Syrup is at first brown, but it 
soon assumes a paler color, without depositing any Oxide of Iron." There 
is also an article on the subject in the " Journal de Pharmacie," March, 
1841. 
The reader ,is also referred to an article " On the Preservation of the 
Protiodide of Iron, by William Procter, Jun." in the American Journal of 
Pharmacy. Vol 10, Page 13. April, 1840. 
In the Journ. de Pharmacie, for Sept. 1840, we find a proposition by M. 
Oberdoirffer, a Pharmacopcelist, at Hamburgh, to substitute a Sesqui- 
iodide of Iron for the Iodide. He proposes to prepare it in the following 
manner: — "Take sixteen parts of Iodine, six parts of iron filings, and 
thirty-two parts of water ; and form the Iodide of Iron. Filter the solution, 
and having diluted it with 128 parts of water, add six parts of Iodine, 
and as much pure water as will make the whole up to 320 parts." M. 
Oberdoirffer remarks, that it produces the same effect as the Iodide of 
Iron, but it is more active. 
It is scarcely necessary to say, that this is not a Sesqui-Iodide, but a 
mixture of the Iodide and free Iodine. It is the presence of the latter that 
the Syrup is intended to prevent. — T. 
