MINUTE DIVISION OF MERCURY", 
392 
ART. XXXV. — ON THE MINUTE DIVISION OF MERCURY. 
By Jacob Bell. 
The effect produced on mercury by trituration with other 
substances has been for many years a subject of dispute, and 
it is at this time so undetermined that we can scarcely find any 
two authorities which coincide. The explanations which are 
given are so hypothetical and indefinite, and the experiments 
on which they are founded so liable to fallacy, that a further 
examination of the properties of mercury, when thus tritura- 
ted, is desirable. 
The Pharmaceutical Chemist is particularly interested in 
this question ; for until he has determined to what extent the 
efficacy of mercury is dependent on oxidation, and in what 
manner the required change in the metal ma)'' with certainty be 
effected, he cannot ensure an absolutely uniform result in the 
following preparations — Hydrarg. cum Creta — Pil. Hydrarg. 
— Ungent. Hydrarg., &c. 
Quincy asserts in his new Dispensatory, A. D. 1753, 
"Notwithstanding the mildness and inactivity of crude 
quicksilver undivided, when resolved by fire into the form of 
a fume, or otherwise divided into very minute particles, and 
prevented from reuniting by the interposition of proper sub- 
stances, or combined with mineral acids, it has very powerful 
effects; affording the most violent poisons and the most excel- 
lent remedies that we are acquainted with." 
This sentence contains nearly as much practical information 
as is comprised in the following quotations from modern au- 
thorities : — 
Hydrarg. cum Creta. ( PowelPs Pharmacopoeia, 
1S15J — "It appears to be very slightly oxidized by the tri- 
turation, as it contains, according to Fourcroy, only .04 of 
oxygen." 
( Murray* s Met eria Medica, 1816.^ — "Quicksilver, when 
