Directions for the treatment of persons who have taken poison, and those in a state of apparent death; together with the means of detecting poisons and adulterations in wine; also of distinguishing real from apparent death / by M.P. Orfila. Translated from the French / by R.H. Black ... With an appendix, on suspended animation.

  • Orfila, Matthieu Joseph Bonaventure, 1787-1853
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Directions for the treatment of persons who have taken poison, and those in a state of apparent death; together with the means of detecting poisons and adulterations in wine; also of distinguishing real from apparent death / by M.P. Orfila. Translated from the French / by R.H. Black ... With an appendix, on suspended animation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the tincture of litmus* or turnsole to red. Sulphuric acid has no odour ; heated with charcoal it disengages the same smell as sulphur when burnt. Nitrous acid, poured upon copper, effervesces, and gives rise to copious vapours of an orange colour. The concentrated acid (nitric acid) is colourless; but, poured upon copper, it has the same effect. Concentrated muriatic acid, gives off whitish vapours, and mixed writh a solu- tion of nitrate of silver, throws down a white, heavy, and curdled precipitate, which cannot be dissolved in water or nitric acid. Aqua regia, or nitro-mu- riatic acid, acts upon copper the same as nitric acid. Fluoric acid corrodes glass. Oxalic acid heated in a tube, is almost entirely volatilized, a small portion is de- composed and leaves a little charcoal; a solution in distilled water added to * Red cabbage has been found to furnish as de- licate a test for acids as litmus. The natural co- lour of an infusion of this plant is blue, and is changed green by alkalies in very minute quan- tities, and restored to its primitive colour by acids. Trans,