Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/393

 the peroxide of iron being reduced to the state of protoxide. The same decomposition takes place wherever there is free chlorine, as in impure samples of muriatic or nitric acid.

When the sulphate of zinc contains iron, the alkalis throw down a greenish-white precipitate, the alkaline carbonates a grayish or reddish-white, the ferro-cyanate of potass a light-blue, but sulphuretted-hydrogen the usual white precipitate. Tincture of galls, which merely renders the pure salt hazy, causes a deep violet coagulum if there is any ferruginous impurity.

The sulphate of zinc is acted on by albumen and milk precisely in the same manner as the sulphate of copper. The salt is decomposed, and the metallic oxide forms an insoluble compound with the animal matter.

When the sulphate of zinc has been mixed with vegetable and animal substances, the action of the tests mentioned above is modified. In such circumstances I have found the following process convenient.

The mixture being strained through gauze, it is to be acidulated with acetic acid, and filtered through paper. The acetic acid dissolves any oxide of zinc that may have been thrown down in union with animal matter. The filtered fluid is then to be evaporated to a convenient extent, and treated when cool with sulphuretted-hydrogen gas,—upon which a grayish or white milkiness or precipitate will be formed. The excess of gas must now be expelled by boiling, and the precipitate washed by the process of subsidence and affusion, and collected on a filter. It is then to be dried and heated to redness in a tube. When it has cooled, it is to be acted on by strong nitric acid, which dissolves the zinc and leaves the sulphur. The nitrous solution should next be diluted, and neutralized with carbonate of ammonia; after which the liquid tests formerly mentioned will act characteristically. The effect of carbonate of ammonia, and that of heat on the carbonate of zinc which is thrown down, ought to be particularly relied on.

I have tried this process with the matter vomited after the administration of sulphate of zinc, in a case of pretended poisoning, and found it to answer exceedingly well.

Orfila has lately suggested the following method. Boil the suspected substance in water, evaporate the filtered decoction to dryness, char the residuum with nitric acid as directed for copper in similar circumstances, digest the charcoal in diluted muriatic acid, and subject the filtered solution to hydrosulphuric acid. If the sulphuret be not white, but yellowish from iron, heat it with strong nitric acid, dry the product, and heat it to redness; dissolve it in weak nitric acid; throw down the oxide of iron by an excess of ammonia, which retains the oxide of zinc; and then having filtered the fluid, separate the oxide of zinc by neutralizing the ammonia.

Orfila has furnished the only accurate information hitherto possessed regarding the effects of sulphate of zinc on the animal system. He