fumes. This substance is a sesquioxide, consisting of two equivalents of metal and three of oxygen. Another oxide likewise exists, which contains two equivalents of metal and five of oxygen, and, possessing strong acid properties, is denominated arsenic acid. The sesquioxide and arsenic acid unite with bases, and produce compounds which, with the exception of those they form with the alkalis, are mostly insoluble. Metallic arsenic unites with sulphur in two proportions, forming an orange-red and a sulphur-yellow compound. The compounds of arsenic have very little chemical action with vegetable and animal principles.
Of the compounds which arsenic thus forms, those which it will be necessary to particularize are the following:—1. The protoxide of Berzelius, or fly-powder. 2. The arsenious acid, or white arsenic. 3. The arsenite of copper, or mineral green. 4. The arsenite of potass as contained in Fowler's solution. 5. The arsenite of potass; 6. The various sulphurets, pure and impure, namely, realgar, orpiment, and king's-yellow; and 7. Arseniuretted-hydrogen gas. Of the Tests for Fly-powder.
This substance is rarely known as a poison in Britain, but is a familiar poison in France and Germany, under the names of Poudre à mouches, and Fliegenstein. Of late it has been occasionally used in Scotland for poisoning rats.
It is a fine grayish-black powder, formed by exposing powdered arsenic for a long time to the air; but it also frequently contains fragments of the metal. It is usually considered by chemists to be a mixture of metallic arsenic and its white oxide.
It is acted on by water, the white oxide being found ere long in solution by its proper tests. Oxidation and solution, however, are also effected upon pure metallic arsenic in the same manner. A thousand grains of water take up a grain in the course of half an hour when boiled on the metal.[1]
A very simple and decisive test for fly-powder is derived from the effect of heat. If it is heated in a tube two substances are sublimed, first a white crystalline powder, and then a bright metallic crust, the former being the white oxide, the latter the metal. The metallic crust thus formed possesses physical properties, which distinguish arsenic from all other substances, capable of being sublimed by a low heat: The surface next the tube is very like polished steel, being a little darker in colour, but equal in brilliancy and polish; and the inner surface is either brilliantly crystalline to the naked eye, like the fracture of cast-iron, or has a dull grayish-white colour, but appears crystalline before a common magnifying lens of four or five powers. If these characters be attended to, particularly the appearance of the inner surface, it appears to me scarcely possible to mistake for an arsenical crust any other substance which can be sublimed by any of the methods for subliming arsenic.
- ↑ Hahnemann, Uber die Arsenic-vergiftung, 13.
