Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 1).djvu/361

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meanwhile. This was what was called an apozem. You might add to the apozem, if thought desirable, 3 drachms of senna and 1-1/2 oz. or 2 oz. of flaky manna.

Mr. Francis Moult, Chymist, at the sign of the Glauber's Head, Watling Street, London, translated Dr. Grew's treatise into English, and gave a copy to buyers of the Bitter Purging Salts. Probably he was the "furnace philosopher" referred to by Quincy (see below), though it is difficult to see what there was to object to in his action.

George and Francis Moult (the latter was, no doubt, the chymist who kept the shop in Watling Street) in about the year 1700 found a more abundant supply of the popular salt in a spring at Shooter's Hill, where it is recorded they boiled down as much as 200 barrels of the water in a week, obtaining some 2 cwt. of salt from these. Some time after, a Dr. Hoy discovered a new method of producing an artificial salt which corresponded in all respects with the cathartic salts obtained from Epsom water, and which by reason of the price soon drove the latter out of the market, and caused the Shooter's Hill works to be closed. It was known that Hoy's salt was made from sea-water, and at first it was alleged to be the sal mirabilis of Glauber, sulphate of soda. But this was disproved, and experiments were carried on at the salt works belonging to Lady Carrington at Portsmouth, and later at Lymington, where the manufacture settled for many years, the source being the residue after salt had been made, called the bittern—salts of magnesium, in fact. This was the principal source of supply, though it was made in many places and under various patents until in 1816 Dr. Henry, of Manchester, took out a patent for the production of sulphate of magnesia from dolomite.