View report page

207
sulphur" is demanded. Pereira, the greatest of our writers
on Materia Medica, so long back as 1849 put this question
quite clearly, and he defined "Milk of Sulphur" as meaning
"Precipitated Sulphur," but, in the absence of an
adulteration act, it was not practicable then to repress the
adulteration.
The following extract is from Pereira's Materia Medica,
1849, vol. I., page 346 :—
"The precipitated sulphur of commerce is most
"extensively adulterated with sulphate of lime. In its
"preparation sulphuric acid has been substituted for
"hydrochloric acid, by which the product contains nearly
"two-thirds its weight of crystallized sulphate of lime.
"The adulterated variety is paler than the pure prepara"tion,
and by artificial light it has a glistening or satiny
"appearance owing to the presence of the crystals of
"sulphate of lime.''
In face of such a protest it would seem difficult to attempt
to palliate this miserable adulteration of a medicine which
is largely used among poor people, and it is obviously unfair
that out of thirteen druggists, of whom eleven are conscientious
enough to sell only pure sulphur, two should sell their
sulphur mixed with lime sulphate. The mere fact that
"milk of sulphur," if bought at one shop, is pure sulphur,
while, if bought at another, it contains 10.8 per cent. of
sulphate of lime, and, at another, contains 38.5 per cent. of
this adulterant (equal to more than half its weight of plaster
of Paris as it would be scraped off a statuette), is enough to
condemn the practice as being not only fraudulent but
dangerous, inasmuch as the sick person would never be sure
of what he was taking. Yet an obstinate defence on the
part of the trade was made to this prosecution. Reference