graduate), suspected that iodine was the active constituent of burnt sponge, which had long been empirically employed in goitre and scrofula, and having proved that this was the case, was the first physician to use iodine as a remedy. The pharmaceutical forms and the medical uses of iodine have been very numerous during the century which has almost elapsed since its introduction, but it would be impossible even to detail them here.
Iodoform was first prepared by Serullas about 1828, and its chemical composition was elucidated by Dumas soon after. It was first used in medicine by Bouchardat in 1836, and then dropped out of practice for about twenty years, when it again appeared in French treatises, and its use soon became general as an anti-*septic application.
Bernard Courtois was awarded 6,000 francs by the Academy of Sciences in 1832, but he died in Paris in 1838 in poverty. He had been ruined in 1815 by the competition of East Indian saltpetre with the artificial nitre which he was manufacturing, In that year the prohibitive duty on the native product was removed. When the Academy awarded 6,000 francs to Courtois it also voted 3,000 francs to Coindet, who had so promptly made medical use of Courtois' discovery.
Lithium.
Lithium, the oxide of which was discovered in 1807 by Arfwedson, was first suggested as a remedy for gout by Dr. Ure in 1843. He based his proposal on an observation by Lipowitz of the singular power of lithium is dissolving uric acid. Dr. Garrod popularised the employment of the carbonate of lithium in medicine. Most of the natural mineral waters which had acquired
