distilled water, in such proportions as will leave a large amount of the acid undissolved, and shaken. Filter, crystallise, and let the crystals drain dry at the ordinary temperature in blotting-paper. Another process is to decompose oxalate of lead by dilute sulphuric acid. If the acid is prepared in this way, it has the formula HC,O,2H,O, and its equiva lent is accordingly 63.

It is used by the analyst in various methods of analyses, especially in alkalimetry, acidimetry, and in standardising various volumetric solutions.

Acid, Lactic (H,C6H1006) - A trans- | put into a flask, and treated with lukewarm parent, inodorous, syrupy liquid with a sharp taste; sp. gr. 2-215. It was first obtained by Scheele from whey. It is an important constituent of the gastric juice. It is found in muscular tissue, in small quantities in the urine and sweat, and has, in cases of diabetes, been met with in the saliva. It also exists in some plants, e.g., Nux vomica. When milk is said to turn sour, this sourness is due to a special fermentation. The caseine acts like diastase or other ferments. Peculiar cells, like those of yeast, but smaller, make their appearance, and lactic acid appears in the liquid; but as caseine is coagulated by acid, directly this change has taken place, the ferment caseine is coagulated, and the action stops, to be again renewed, however, if chalk, &c., is added to neutralise the acid. Besides milk, many other organic liquids will undergo this fermentation. It is, indeed, a frequent result of the acetification of vegetable substances. The most effective way of preparing the acid is that of Wackenroder. Digest together 25 parts of sugar of lead, 20 of powdered chalk, 100 of skimmed milk, 200 of water, at 75° F. In six weeks the chalk will be dissolved. The whole is then heated, but not to boiling; the cheese is separated, pressed, and the liquid decanted, clarified by albumen, and evaporated; the lactate of calcium crystallises. It may then be decomposed by sulphuric or oxalic acids.

Acid, Meconic (μýкw, a poppy)-This acid is contained in opium. Its formula is H3C7HO7,3H2O. It strikes a blood-red colour with chloride of iron, and this fact forms the basis for a valuable test in suspected cases of opium poisoning. See OPIUM.

Acid, Oxalic (Dihydric Oxalate) (H,CO2H,O=90+36) — This substance is made on a very large scale by heating a mixture of hydrate of potash and sawdust. It may also be obtained by heating tartaric, citric, or malic acid with potassic hydrate, and by boiling starch or sugar with nitric acid. The process above mentioned of obtaining oxalic acid from sawdust (Robert Dale & Co.'s patent) has so cheapened this acid, that whereas in 1851 it cost 16d. a pound, it now costs about half that. It occurs naturally in the wood-sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), in the Rumex acetosa, and in the leaf-stalks of the common rhubarb.

It is of importance to obtain this acid perfectly pure. The purification of the oxalic acid of commerce is very easy. The process is carried out as follows:-The impure acid is

In order to detect the acid in the contents of the stomach (which in such a case would be strongly acid), the contents are boiled with distilled water, filtered, then treated with a solution of acetate of lead. If oxalic acid is present, it will be precipitated as an oxalate of lead. This precipitate must be well washed, and then suspended in water, through which pass a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen, filter off the black sulphide of lead, evaporate to dryness, weigh and test the residue. Another way is by treating the oxalate of lead by sulphide of ammonium, and obtaining thus the oxalate of ammonia.

Having obtained by either method a substance supposed to be oxalic acid or oxalate of ammonia, the following tests may be applied. Lime water gives a precipitate in solutions of oxalic acid of oxalate of lime, a white powder, insoluble in acetic acid, but soluble in strong mineral acids. If a little solid oxalic acid is treated with strong sulphuric acid in a test tube, it is decomposed, froths up, emitting carbonic acid and carbonic oxide, the latter burning with a blue flame. A solution of oxalic acid reduces the salts of gold. The former tests agreeing, with its physical properties, will easily identify the acid if present.

Acid, Phenic-See ACID, CARBOLIC.

Acid, Prussic (syn. Acid Hydrocyanic) — (HCy = 27) — Observed specific gravity of vapour 0.9476, of liquid 0-7058 at 446° (7° C.); melting-point, 5° F. (−15° C.); boiling-point, 80° F. (265° C.); rel. weight 13 5. This substance is a most deadly poison. In its concentrated state, it kills with a lightninglike rapidity; but in the dilute commercial form, even after a large dose, a few simple acts, such as walking to a bedroom door, putting a cork in a bottle, getting into bed, &c., have been performed. The symptoms are paleness, syncope, gasping for breath, convulsions, contracted pupils, nausea, insensibility, and death.

The most appropriate remedy is ammonia,

To detect the acid in the contents of the stomach, or in any fluid, if the smell, either of bitter almonds or of the acid itself, be perceptible, and the liquid have an acid reaction, simple distillation into a receiver, containing little distilled water, will separate it in a tolerably pure state. If the reaction is alkaline, the liquid may contain cyanide of potassium-a very common salt. In such a case, a little sulphuric acid added to it, and then distilled as before, will separate it in the form of dilute hydrocyanic acid.

The dilute prussic acid obtained by either of the above processes may be tested as follows:-Add a little liquor potassa, a few drops of a solution of sulphate of iron, and then a little perchloride of iron: the result is Prussian blue-the blue turned to brown by alkalies. This is very reliable evidence of prussic acid.

Add nitrate of silver, a white precipitate, curdy, insoluble in cold dilute nitric acid, soluble in ammonia and cyanide of potash, denotes cyanide of silver, and is also a very reliable test.

liant plates, freely soluble in water, alcohol, and ether. It is prepared by subliming gallic acid, which may be mixed with pumicestone, and put in a retort, through which carbonic acid gas is passed.

It is used in photography, and in the analysis of air and other gases, where it is of great value, from the fact that an alkaline solution of pyrogallic acid absorbs oxygen rapidly, and will completely remove it from air or other mixture of gases.

Acid, Sulphurous (Sulphurous Anhydride)-Properly speaking, the latter is the proper name, as its chemical composition is represented by the symbols SO; and it is composed of 1 volume of sulphur united with 2 of oxygen, the three volumes, at the time of combination, being condensed into two. The theoretic specific gravity of the gas is 2.2112; observed specific gravity, 2.247; of the liquid, 1.38 at 60°(15° C.); melting-point, -105° F. (-76° C.); boiling-point, 14° F. (10° C.) This substance is ordinarily in the form of a gas, but may be liquefied by intense cold.

It is prepared for commercial purposes by deoxidising charcoal or sawdust by sulphuric acid, and distilling. It is accompanied in this case by half its volume of carbonic anhydride.

In a pure state for the laboratory, 90 A very accurate and convenient method is grammes of concentrated sulphuric acid are to take two accurately-fitting watch-glasses, boiled with 15 grammes of copper clippings; the moisten the one with a little sulphuric acid, result is sulphate of copper, water, and pure add a few drops of the liquid for examination, sulphurous anhydride. It is also prepared by invert the other one over it, which must con-heating sulphur and oxide of manganese; and tain a little sulphide of ammonium. (Or the two whenever sulphur is burned in air, this gas is watch-glasses may be placed the one above the formed. other, in the ordinary way, under a glass shade.) After a little time the upper one is removed, dried, and perchloride of iron is added. If prussic acid is present, a blood-red colour is produced, which is discharged by bichloride of mercury, thus distinguishing it from the similar colour afforded by meconic acid.

Properties and Uses.-The gas has a pungent, suffocating odour, and if a person inhales it slightly or entirely undiluted, it In a dilute form it rapidly causes death. acts simply as an irritant, and causes running at the eyes and nose, sneezing, &c. It quickly extinguishes flame, and is not inflammable.

The chief forms in which prussic acid is By passing it through a tube, cooled by a ordinarily met with arefreezing mixture, it may be condensed to a colourless transparent liquid, which dissolves

1. The dilute medicinal acid =2 per cent. anhy- bitumen. Water takes up 68 8 of its bulk of

drous acid.

2. Scheele's acid 2 per cent. anhydrous acid.

3. Cyanide of potassium, 2 grains ---50 drops of medicinal acid.

4. Oil of bitter almonds = 13 per cent. anhydrous

acid.

Acid, Pyroligneous - Impure acetic acid, obtained from the destructive distillation of wood. Owing to its impurities, which are of a tarry nature, it is a little more antiseptic than pure acetic acid. See ACID, ACETIC.

this gas at 32° F., 43 5 at 59° F. (15° C.), and 32 at 75° F. (24° C.) Thus it is extremely soluble. When passed into water it combines with it, and is then converted into the real acid-sulphurous acid (H2SO3)-but this compound has never been isolated. Sulphurous acid combines with bases, forming sulphites, bisulphites, and hyposulphites.

This gas is extensively used by the bleachers of straw, wool, silken goods, isinglass, sponge, and other goods. It is a most excellent antiAcid, Pyrogallic (CHO)—This sub- septic. It is used in this country to keep stance has no acid reaction. It forms bril-casks sweet before putting cider, &c., in

them; and in Italy, also, a little sulphur is burnt in the casks to purify them. Meat, sealed up in canisters, filled with sulphurous acid, and with the addition of nitrogen, or a little nitric oxide, keeps fresh for years.

Another way which Mr. Gamgee has introduced, is to kill the animal with carbonic oxide, and then the meat is preserved in canisters filled with carbonic oxide and sulphurous acid gas. A piece of meat, about an inch broad and thick, and about three inches long, was sealed up by Dr. Angus Smith in a bottle, and was good at the end of twenty-eight days, but its colour had changed to pink.

As

this agent is used, there may be some destruction of property, for it discharges vegetable colours, attacks iron, and is absorbed by cloth, leather, &c. Indeed, in cases of contagious fevers, it can rarely be used in sufficient quantity to be really efficient. See DISINFECT

ANTS.

Aconite - Aconite Root — Aconiti radix-Natural order, Ranunculaceœ.—The from Germany, or cultivated in Britain, and root, dried, of Aconitum Napellus, imported collected in winter or early spring before the leaves have appeared. Numerous cases of poisoning have occurred from this root being mistaken for horse-radish; but there are striking differences, horse-radish root being of a long cylindrical shape, of the same size and thickness for many inches, and whitish-yellow outside, having a powerful pungent odour when scraped, whilst aconite root is SHORT and CONICAL, tapering rapidly to a point. Externally its colour is of an earthy brown, but white inside, having a strong earthy odour. Aconitia-Aconitina-An alkaloid ob

a disinfectant, either as a fumigating agent, or in solution, it deservedly takes a high place. As a fumigator, it has been used from the earliest times, and is mentioned by Ulysses in Homer (Odyssey, Bk. xxii. 1. 492). It is used to fumigate sick-rooms, destroy odours, and has been lately employed in rather a large scale to sewers. (See SEWERS.) It does not appear to remove all odours, but certainly the greater number of them. It acts chemically as a deoxidiser, and then it appears to oxidise afterwards by part-tained from aconite. The plant is about five ing with its own oxygen. Sometimes, also, when mixed with vegetable matter, it is entirely decomposed, and sulphuretted hydrogen is given off. Its exact action on the low forms of animal life is hardly known. Certain it is, that, even much diluted, it stops the amæboid movements of living cells, destroys or kills vibrios, and acts deleteriously on vegetation. It has been suggested that, as the acid is always present in towns, it is the cause of the decay of the teeth, principally from the fact that, in works where this gas is emanated, the workmen lose their teeth.

It is a most valuable agent as a parasiticide -especially the vegetable parasites-and as such is used in cutaneous affections with the most beneficial effect, whether the disease exists in man or animals. It has also been used in the Cattle Plague by Dr. Dewar and others, and they have spoken very highly of its effects in this disease. By the chemist, among other uses, it employed to reduce peroxide of iron to protoxide.

The sulphites have a very similar action as disinfectants, and are sometimes more convenient. In order to disinfect clothes, letters, and other articles, the articles may be suspended over pieces of lighted brown paper, previously coated with sulphur, or over a shovel, or dish of red-hot coals, upon which sulphur is sprinkled, or in which a crucible is immersed containing a lump of sulphur. To thoroughly disinfect a room, it should be almost hermetically sealed, and a very large quantity of sulphur burnt. In such a case, if

feet in height. The leaves are deep green on
the upper surface, lighter beneath, smooth,
palmate, five partite, the segments wedge-
shaped and pinnately cut. The root is fusi-
form, like a carrot, from one to three inches
long, not thicker than the finger at the crown,
with fleshy fibres, dark brown on the surface,
whitish within. The flowers are purple, hel-
met-shaped, numerous, and in dense racemes.
All parts of the plant are bitter and acrid,
causing a tingling of the lips and skin, followed
by numbness. They contain the alkaloid aco-
nitia (C30H4,NO,), united with aconitic acid
(CHO). Another base is also present,
which has been named Aconella, resembling
narcotine in its composition and properties,
capable of crystallisation, but not possessing
the active properties of aconitia. Aconitia is
a white, uncrystallisable solid, soluble in 150
parts of cold and 50 parts of hot water, and
much more soluble in alcohol and ether;
alkaline, neutralising acids, and precipitated
from them by the caustic alkalies. It is a
very active poison, entirely soluble in pure
ether, and leaves no residue when burned
with free excess of air.

The separation of this poison in a post-mortem examination seems at present almost an impossibility, owing to the changes which it undergoes in the organism, as well as by its decomposition during the process of evaporation and exposure to the air, by which it becomes converted into ammonia. Nor are there any peculiar chemical reactions by which it can be readily identified. Its

physiological-that is, its benumbing and paralysing effects are the only prominent ones. The following are the principal tests. Cold nitric or sulphuric acid applied to the solid produces no reaction; but if heated with the latter acid, it produces a brown colour.

The caustic alkalies produce with its solutions a white precipitate, which is redissolved on the addition of more water, by which it is distinguished from atropia.

Acts, Contagious Diseases-See CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACT, VENEREAL DISEASES, PROSTITUTION, &c.

Act, Diseases Prevention-The whole of this Act, except so far as relates to the in the Public Health Act, 1875. See DISEASES, Metropolis, has been repealed, and is included PREVENTION OF.

Acts, Factory-See FACTORY; TRADES,

Chloride of gold produces an abundant yel- INJURIOUS. low amorphous precipitate.

Chloride of platinum produces NO PRECIPI TATE with this alkaloid, which is characteristic. In cases of poisoning, an emetic should at once be given, and the patient placed in the recumbent position, applying friction over the heart, and chafing the limbs. If the patient can swallow, a stimulant should be given.

Aconitia is often very impure: sometimes it is mixed with delphinia, and sometimes it contains aconella, the other principle contained in the root, and precipitated with the aconitia. Pure aconitia in gr. dose will destroy a dog; but 1 gr. of the spurious alkaloid can often be given without much effect.

Act Adulteration (35 & 36 Vict. c. 74)This Act is now repealed, and the Sale of Food and Drugs Act substituted in its stead. See ADULTERATION.

Act, Alkali-See ALKALI ACT.

Act, Artisans and Labourers Dwellings, 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 130), Artisans Dwellings, 1875-See HABI

TATIONS.

Acts, Labouring Classes LodgingHouses.-Under this general appellation are included the Labouring Classes DwellingHouses Act, 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. 34), the Labouring Classes Dwelling-Houses Act, 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 28), Labouring Classes Dwelling-Houses Act, 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 28). The whole of these Acts apply only to urban districts, and may or may not be adopted; but where they are in force, the provisions must be duly carried out by the urban authority.

Acts, Land Clauses, Consolidation of-See LANDS, PURCHASE OF.

The

Acts, Local-There are various local Acts still in force in different places. Local Government Board has now the power by provisional order to wholly or partially repeal, alter, or amend any Local Act (with the exception of a Local River Conservancy Act). Any such provisional order may provide for the extension of the provisions of the Local Act referred to therein beyond the district within the limits of such Act, or for the exclusion of the whole or a portion of any such district from the application of such Act;

Act, Bakehouse (26 & 27 Vict. c. 40) and may provide what local authority shall

See BAKEHOUSE.

Act, Bakehouse Regulation (26 & 27 Vict. c. 40)-Both rural and urban authorities have to carry out, and are subject to the provisions of, this Act. See Bakehouse.

66

Acts, Baths and Washhouses-These are An Act to Encourage the Establishment of Public Baths and Washhouses" (9 & 10 Vict. c. 74), and an Act amending the same (10 & 11 Vict. c. 61). These Acts may or may not be adopted by an urban authority. See BATHS.

Act, Coal Mines Regulation, 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 7)-See MINES, SANITARY LEGISLATION, &c.

Acts, Common Lodging-House, 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. 28), 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 41)-Both these Acts are repealed, and included in the Public Health Act, 1875, except those portions which relate to the Metropolitan Police District.

|

have jurisdiction for the purposes of the Public Health Act in any area which is by such order included in or excluded from such district (P. H., s. 303).

All Acts whatever done by authorities by virtue of the powers conferred upon them by a Local Act are valid, notwithstanding the passing of the Public Health Acts, 1872 and 1875 (P. H. 338).

Where a local sanitary Act is in force within the district of a local authority, proceedings may be instituted at discretion, either under the Local Act or under the General Act (i.e., P. H.); but no person may be punished for the same offence both under a Local Act and under the Public Health Act, nor is the local authority, by reason of the existence of a Local Act in their district, exempted from the performance of any duty or obligation to Health Act, 1875 (P. H. 340). which they are subject under the Public

Acts, Local Government, 1858 (21 &

SCHEDULE V.

PART I.

ENACTMENTS which have been already repealed are in a few instances included in this repeal, in order to

avoid the necessity of reference to previous statutes.

TITLE OR SHORT TITLE.

The Public Health Act, 1848.

The Common Lodging-Houses Act, The whole Act, except so far as re-

1851.

lates to the Metropolitan Police

The Common Lodging-Houses Act, The whole Act, except so far as re-

1853.

The Diseases Prevention Act, 1855.

The Nuisances Removal Act for

England, 1855.

The Local Government Act, 1858.

An Act to amend the Acts for the

Removal of Nuisances and the

Prevention of Diseases.

The Local Government Act (1858) The whole Act.

Amendment Act, 1861.

The Local Government Act Amend- The whole Act.

ment Act, 1863.

The Nuisances Removal Act for

England (Amendment) Act, 1863.

The Sewage Utilisation Act, 1865.

The Nuisances Removal (No. 1) Act,

The Sanitary Act, 1868.
The Sanitary Loans Act, 1869.

The Sanitary Law Amendment Act, The whole Act, except so far as re-

1874.

The Public Health Act, 1848," and "The Local Govern.

ment Act, 1858," and "The Local Government Act (1858) Amendment Act, 1861," and "The Local Govern-
ment Act Amendment Act, 1863," are in this Act referred to as "The Local Government Acts."