solution. Corrosive sublimate may become the subject of a medico-legal analysis in three states. It may be in the solid form; it may be dissolved in water along with other mineral substances; and it may be mixed with vegetable and animal fluids or solids.
Of the Tests for Corrosive Sublimate in the solid state.
Corrosive sublimate in the solid state is distinguished from other substances by the action of the heat, and the effects of solution of caustic potass. Subjected to heat alone it sublimes in white acrid fumes; and if the experiment is made in a little tube, it condenses again unaltered in a crystalline cake. Treated with solution of caustic potass, it becomes yellow, the binoxide being disengaged, and hydrochloric acid uniting with the potass, as may be proved by nitrate of silver, after filtration and neutralization with nitric acid. The yellow colour of the binoxide which is separated in this process distinguishes corrosive sublimate from calomel, which is also decomposed by the potass solution, but yields a black protoxide. Caustic soda has the same effect. Not so caustic ammonia: Ammonia blackens calomel, but does not change the colour of corrosive sublimate, as it forms with it a white triple salt, commonly called white precipitate.
The process here described is the best and simplest method of determining chemically the nature of corrosive sublimate in its solid state. But two other tests may also be mentioned, as they have been a good deal used. A very good test is the process of reduction with potass, by which globules of mercury are sublimed, and a chloride of potassium left in the flux, as may be proved by the action of nitrate of silver on the solution of the flux previously neutralized with nitric acid. This test alone will not distinguish corrosive sublimate from calomel: The solubility of the former must be taken into account.—Another satisfactory test is the solution of protochloride of tin. Corrosive sublimate, when left for some time in this solution, first becomes grayish-black, and ere long its place is supplied by globules of mercury,—the chlorine being entirely abstracted by the protochloride of tin, which consequently passes to the state of a bichloride. Calomel is similarly affected.
Of the Tests for Corrosive Sublimate in a state of Solution.
Two processes may be mentioned for the detection of corrosive sublimate in mineral solutions,—a process by reduction, and a process by liquid tests.
Reduction process.—In order to procure mercury in its characteristic metallic state from a solution of corrosive sublimate, the following plan of procedure will be found the most delicate and convenient. Add to the solution, previously acidulated with hydrochloric acid if very weak, a little of the protochloride of tin, which will be seen presently to be a liquid reagent of great delicacy. If the solution is not darkened there is not present an appreciable quantity of mercury.
