Confusion bismuth

In the fifth edition of his Cours de Chymie, Nicolas Lemery confused bismuth with zinc. Bismuth, said he, is a Sulphureous Marcassite that is found in the Tinn Mines many do think it is an imperfect Tinn which partakes of good store of Arsenick its pores are disposed in another manner than those of Tinn, which is evident enough because the Menstruum which dissolves Bismuth cannot intirely dissolve Tinn. There is another sort of Marcassite, called Zinch, that much resembles Bismuth.. . Marcassite is nothing else but the excrement of a Metal, or an Earth impregnated with Metallick parts. The Pewterers do mix Bismuth and Zinch in their Tinn to make it found the better (52). 

Ger. Weisse Masse, white mass later Wisuth and Bisemutum) In early times bismuth was confused with tin and lead. Claude Geoffroy the Younger showed it to be distinct from lead in 1753. 

Bismuth, which has been known since ancient times, was often confused with lead and tin. Basilius Valentinus described some of its uses in 1450, but it was in 1753 that bismuth was shown by Claude Francois Geoffroy to be a distinct element. Bismuth occurs freely in nature and in such minerals as bismuthinite (Bi2S3), bismite (Bi203), and bismutite KBiObCO i. ... 

Acute toxicity of high-level exposure to bismuth manifests as kidney damage. Chronic low-level exposure to bismuth can result in weakness, joint pain, fever, mental confusion, and difficulty walking. Symptoms usually resolve when exposure is stopped, but can lead to death with ongoing exposure. 

From 1973 onward many cases of an encephalopathy were reported among bismuth users. By 1979, 945 cases had been recorded in France alone, 72 of them fatal the worldwide total exceeded 1000 cases. Bismuth encephalopathy is characterized by ataxia, confusion, speech disorder, and myoclonus. The subgaUate and oxychloride have been imphcated, as has the subcitrate when used in a patient... 

Bismuth is one of the elements often confused with other elements. Old manuscripts show that bismuth was often confused with lead, tin, antimony, or even silver. 

The name is somewhat obscure, but its symbol came from Latin bisemutum, which was a Latinized version of the German Wismuth, perhaps from weisse Masse, meaning white mass. Bismuth, although rarely found in elemental form in nature, may have been confused with tin or lead in ancient times. Although earlier references to the metal may exist, it was Claude Geoffroy Junine who showed that it was a distinct mineral in 1753. Bismuth is used in the creation of magnets, cosmetics, and some medicines and as a trace alloy for specialized iron products. 

There continues to be great confusion about the meaning of formal oxidation states vs. real charges on ions. As expected this is more of a problem in the physics communityf but it is unfortunately also a problem in parts of the chemistry community. When one writes Ba2BiIIIBiv0 f there is no implication that the real charges on bismuth cations should resemble +3 and +5. 

Bismuth is a brittle, crystalline metal that is white with a pinkish tint. It is the heaviest and only nontoxic member of the heavy metals. Its name is derived from the German Wismut ( white metal ), which was Latinized to bisemutum by G. Bauer in 1530. In early years it was confused with tin and lead. Bismuth has only one naturally occurring isotope, ° Bi (the heaviest stable isotope of any element). 

For a long time antimony and bismuth were not distinguished from each other even Andreas Libavius (1540 to 1616) confused the two. 

No doubt bismuth was known at a much earlier date, but its history is confused because it was called marcasite, a name that has been used for many other substances also and is now mainly used to denote a rhombic variety of iron pyrites FeS2. Most of the later writers regarded it as a semi-metal. Barba, a South American priest, wrote in 1640 that bismuth had been discovered in Bohemia and that it was a metal somewhat like a cross between tin and lead, without being either of the two . It was apparently used in the manufacture of pewter rendering it harder and more sonorous. Hellot, the French chemist noticed that Cornish smelters added it to their metal, and in 1737 he succeeded in preparing a button of bismuth from a cobalt ore. Geoffroy in 1753 showed conclusively that bismuth was not a variety of lead, but a distinct metallic species. 

During the seventeenth century the nature of zinc was misunderstood it was frequently confused with bismuth. In 1695 Homberg identified it as the metal in blende and about 1700 Johann Kunckel von Lftwenstein recognised that calamine contains a metal that alloys with copper in the manufacture of brass. It may be recalled that both Homberg and Kunckel played an important rdle in the discovery of phosphorus (p. 76). Percy states that Henckel was the first person in Europe to make metallic zinc from... 

Bismuth — (Ger. Weisse Masse, white mass later Wisuth and Bisemutum), Bi at. wt. 208.98040(1) at. no. 83 m.p. 271.4°C b.p. 1564°C sp. gr. 9.79 (20°C) valence 3 or 5. In early times bismuth was confused with tin and lead. Claude Geoffroy the Younger showed it to be distinct fromlead in 1753. It is a white crystalline, brittle metal with a pinkish tinge. It occurs native. The most important ores are bismuthinite or bismuth glance (BijSj,) and bismite (Bi O, ). Peru, Japan, Mexico, Bolivia, and Canada are major bismuth producers. Much of the bismuth produced in the U.S. is obtained as a by-product in refining... 

There are several chemical elements the history of whose discovery is not clear. We had every reason to classify the nine elements described in Chapter 1 as the elements of antiquity. For the five elements—phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, and zinc—discussed in this chapter, there is evidence that people knew these elements (with the exception of phosphorus), or at least their ores and minerals, in prehistoric times, or at any rate before the Christian era. But the knowledge of them was confused and ambiguous. It became better much later, at the time of alchemistry when various chemical procedures were performed in laboratories and chemist s shops. Although their nature remained unclear, they were a basis of many useful compounds (particularly, acids and salts). 

Thus, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, and zinc have unusual histories. By a strange caprice of nature, P, As, Sb, and Bi are in the main subgroup of the fifth group of the periodic table and the similarity in their properties often resulted in confusion. 

Bismuth has been known to mankind for centuries but for a long time it was confused with antimony, lead, and tin. Paracelsus, for instance, said that there were two varieties of antimony—a black one used for the purification of gold and very similar to lead, and a white one named bismuth and resembling tin a mixture of these two varieties resembles silver. From the chemical standpoint this confusion can easily be explained. Antimony and bismuth are analogues of each other and have common features with lead and tin, the elements of the previous group. 

There are six kinds of metals and I have shown in my dissertation on the half-metals which I presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1735 that there are also six kinds of half-metalsb. The same dissertation shows that, through my experiments, I had the good fortune to. .. be the first discoverer of a new half-metal namely cobalt regulus, which had formerly been confused with bismuth. 

For centuries, bismuth was confused with tin or lead. Alchemists believed it to be further along in a transformation they foresaw ending in silver. Accordingly, miners, when they chanced to come across bismuth, would lament that alas, we have come too soon. By 1753, Claude-Franfois Geoffrey made such a thorough and definitive investigation of bismuth that he is often listed as the discoverer. 

Bismuth is ametaUic element found in Europe and South America (for example, Erzgibirge, Saxony Piedmont, Italy Sierra Morena, Spain and Peru and Bohvia, among others). It has often been confused historically with antimony, to which it is closely related physically. 

Bismuth has also been referred to as marchesita or marcasite (. v.) however, there was considerable confusion and this term is therefore imprecise in early literature. 

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