Codex @codex  0

The 1864 iron list includes metallic, ferrous, ferric and compound preparations; its wet Ferri Peroxidum Hydratum was used historically as an antidote to arsenic poisoning. It must be distinguished from dried Ferri Peroxidum and from later editions' reassignment of similar Latin names.

The officinal articles and preparations are:

^{[ref] [ref]}

Prepare the hydrated peroxide by inducing precipitation from the ferric solution with sodium hydroxide, collecting and washing the wet precipitate, and preserving it without drying in a covered vessel. The starting solution is Liquor Ferri Persulphatis, whose “persulphate” here means ferric sulfate, not a modern peroxydisulfate salt. Add the appropriately diluted ferric solution to the alkaline liquor with stirring, allow the precipitate to settle, collect it on a calico filter, and wash with distilled water until the washings no longer give a precipitate with barium chloride. This tests removal of soluble sulfate. The resulting fresh, hydrated material is kept wet; drying gives the separate dried preparation. ^[ref]

In modern chemical notation the precipitation can be idealised asThe fresh solid is a hydrated ferric oxide material with variable water content; the equation is not a claim that every pharmaceutical batch is one pure, crystalline iron hydroxide. Its historical use depended on binding dissolved arsenic into less available material in the digestive tract, especially the freshly precipitated, wet state. It was not a universal antidote to every metal or every stage of absorbed arsenic poisoning. Contemporary discussion explicitly identified the new hydrated peroxide as an arsenic antidote. ^{[ref] [ref]}

Modern treatment of significant arsenic poisoning concerns systemic toxicity and may involve specialist-directed chelation therapy; a nineteenth-century ferric paste is not the modern treatment standard. ^[ref]

Prepare quinine sulfate by acidic extraction of cinchona bark, alkaline precipitation of the quinine base, conversion into the sulfate, and purification by crystallization. “Quinia” is the historical name for quinine.

The 1867 process starts with one pound of yellow cinchona bark in coarse powder, three fluid ounces of hydrochloric acid, four pints of solution of sodium hydroxide, and sufficient distilled water and diluted sulfuric acid. The hydrochloric acid is diluted with ten pints of distilled water. The bark is first moistened with diluted sulfuric acid, macerated for twenty-four hours with occasional stirring, and then exhausted in a percolator with the diluted hydrochloric acid. The historical endpoint is disappearance of the bitter character of the emerging liquid. This describes the period's test, not an instruction to taste an unidentified medicinal material.^[ref]

The soluble alkaloid salts enter the percolate. Adding solution of sodium hydroxide liberates the much less water-soluble quinine base. After settling, the liquid is decanted and the precipitate collected on a filter and washed with cold distilled water until the washings cease to be coloured. The precipitate is then treated warm with distilled water and diluted sulfuric acid, added gradually to obtain a neutral liquid with nearly all the precipitate dissolved. The hot solution is filtered through paper, the filter washed with distilled water, and the filtrate concentrated until a surface film appears. It is then set aside for crystallization; the crystals are dried on filter paper without applied heat. This is a separation of a naturally occurring alkaloid, not a synthesis of the quinine skeleton.

Writing $B$ for the quinine base, the central changes are:The successive changes in solubility explain the apparatus: a percolator washes soluble salts out of the powder; a filter retains the liberated base; a heated porcelain vessel dissolves the crude base as its sulfate; cooling then recovers the less soluble crystals. Other cinchona alkaloids can accompany the product, which is why appearance and bitterness are insufficient evidence of purity.

The 1867 “Characters and Tests” combine identity and purity checks. They must be read as a group:

The historical quantity and endpoint requirements belong to the 1867 monograph.^[ref] Its formula represents the then-described heptahydrate; the current “Quinine sulfate” instead specifies a dihydrate and modern tests for related cinchona alkaloids. The modern specification explains that distinction; the exam's historical tests remain those listed above.^[ref]