Blue mass

By raising the temperature to 100° C. one further molecule of water is expelled, a violet monohydrate, CoC12.H20, remaining. The monohydrate may also be prepared by concentrating a solution of the hexahydrate in absolute alcohol at 93° C. The salt crystallises out in pale violet needles.10 At 110° to 120° C. the anhydrous salt is obtained as a blue mass. 

Cobalt nitrate test Phosphates when heated on charcoal and then moistened with a few drops of cobalt nitrate solution, give a blue mass of the phosphate, NaCoP04. This must not be confused with the blue mass produced with aluminium compounds (see Section III.23). 

The test should be repeated with another portion of the original substance if a white residue is obtained. Add one or two drops of cobalt nitrate solution and heat again. A blue mass indicates aluminium. 

Not all of the products issuing from the Confederate labs were botanical or galenical preparations. The surgeon general, for example, announced in July 1863 that J. Julian Chisolm had commenced the manufacture of blue mass, mercurial ointment, and sweet spirit of nitre at his laboratory in Columbia, South Carolina, and ordered purveyor Blackie to make no more purchases of these articles but rather to requisition them directly from Chiso1m.94... 

Although the South clearly had to contend with serious and sustained shortages and labored under conditions of extreme difficulty that were unknown to its Northern adversary, it is important to bear in mind that through much of the war (especially before 1863), supplies were normally obtainable. In fact, twenty-four-year-old John Samuel Apperson remarked of his 1 st Virginia Brigade, I am sure I do no violence to the tmth when I say that I have never seen anything so abused in my life as medicine is here. Men take it entirely too much. i But sickness was real and efforts—however cmde— to alleviate it were attempted. Apperson s prescriptions of blue mass, opium, morphine, tannin, G. piU (probably gamboge piUs), castor oil, plumbs. Acct. (acetate of lead), and others, seem pretty routine for the peri od.2... 

R Massae Pilularum Hydrargyri [blue mass or mercury],... 

Masses Masses are plastic, semisolid pharmaceutical preparations composed of active medicinal substances combined with a diluent or filler and an excipient, capable of being shaped into pills with little or no further treatment. The three essential requirements of a pill mass are adhesiveness (the mass must be sufficiently adhesive to retain its shape and yet be soft enough to be worked by the fingers or suitable apparatus into the desired form) firmness (the mass must possess sufficient firmness to permit the pills to retain their shape) and plasticity (a natural result of the proper degree of adhesiveness and firmness). Two masses appear to have survived the changes in modern medicine Mass of Mercury (or Blue Mass), a cholago-gic preparation last official in the National Formulary IX (1950), and Ferrous Carbonate Mass (or Vallet s Mass), a hematinic last official in the National Formulary X 0955). ... 

FIGURE 20.27 An MRI scan of the abdomen of a healthy person. The liver is the large blue mass (top and left) the spleen is at the lower right (yellow). Stomach contents are at the top right (red and yellow). The purple outer layer is fat. 

Properties Brown powder or greenish-blue mass. Soluble in ether insoluble in water. Combustible. 

The anhydrous salt is obtained as a blue mass from the water-containing red chloride [CoClJ by gentle heating (to above 140 °C) in a downward-directed test tube or a porcelain dish, and upon cooling in moist air it gradually becomes red with the absorption of water when moistened with water the color change occurs at once. 

Alterative Pills. Take 24 grains blue mass, 3 grains pulverized opium, and 3 grains powdered ipecacuanha. Make into 24 pills. 

Wplex Pills. Take of powdered socotrine aloes, 24 grains blue-mass, 12 g ns podophyllin, 3 grains. Mix thor-onjmly, with sufficient symp to form a proper... 

Wallace s Fills. Tako aocotrino aloes, scammony, and soap, all iu powder, blue mass and compound extract of coiocynth, I scruple each to make 20 pills. 

Dick s Dyspepsia Fills. Make the follo ng ingredients into 40 pills 2 scruples each compound extract of coiocynth, and compound rhubarb pill see No, 492J) 1 scmplo blue mass No, 4919) 55 grains soap 1 drachm extract henbane 3 drops oil of cloves. Take 2 pills at bed-time. 

Mercury Mass. Blue pill blue mass. Contains 32-34% metallic Hg. Bluish-gray mass. The rest is honey, licorice, althea, glycerol, and some mercury oleate. 

Thomson says Wenzel never obtained the confidence of chemists, nor is his name ever quoted as an authority , and his book (I) fell almost dead-bom from the press — yet it was republished twice. I have also found Wenzel quite often quoted, but by later writers in error for Richter (see p. 676). Among his discoveries was the blue mass formed from alumina and cobalt oxide, usually called Thenard s blue (Thenard, 1805, see Vol. IV) but first noticed by Gahn. Wenzel also recognised that iron becomes passive in concentrated nitric acid. ... 

A steel nail which has a drop of ferroxyl indicator (Figure 9.32) added shows the two important electrochemical aspects of this redox reaction. A blue mass forms showing that iron(ii) ions are present. This anodic process is the oxidation of iron atom to iron(ii) ions ... 

Wenzel is said to have described the blue mass formed with cobalt oxide and alumina, afterwards called Thenard s blue this had been noticed by Gahn (see Vol. Ill, p. 201). The process was described by Chaptal, who says he initiated the research by Thenard and Merime. Thenard investigated the oxides and salts of mercury, phosphates of soda and ammonia, nickel, compounds (alloys) of antimony and tin, oxides of iron and other metals, mordants, a supposed black phosphorus, and phosphorous acid (which he found contained 100 phosphorus +110 39 seep. 60). He obtained... 

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