Inheritance powder

Although the element is a metalloid, the long, brittle, crystals have a metallic shine. The white, tasteless oxide (arsenic trioxide As203) has been famous and notorious ("inheritance powder") even after centuries traces can be found in bodies. The arsenic compound "Salvarsan" was first used by Paul Ehrlich for the treatment of syphilis — the start of chemotherapy. Popular today as a semiconducting material. Component of LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and lasers. Arsenic hardens lead, used earlier in letter-press printing, today only for lead shot. 

In seventeenth century France, it was fashionable among Parisians to seek advice and aphrodisiacs from fortune-tellers. These fortune-tellers, however, also sold poisons (often called inheritance powders as they enabled those who made use of them to claim their inheritance ahead of time by dispatching of their parents or spouse). 

Elemental arsenic is not that harmful. The commonly used poison is actually ar-senic(in) oxide, AS2O3, a white compound that dissolves in water, is tasteless, and if administered over a period of time, is hard to detect. It was once known as the inheritance powder becanse it could be added to grandfather s wine to hasten his demise so that his grandson conld inherit the estate ... 

As is one of the few chemical elements which is universally associated with the word poison . This reputation is not undeserved, for over the centuries, many deaths can be attributed to the administration of arsenic trioxide as inheritance powder . The metalloid has a dual reputation, for its use in medicine in earlier times is equally well documented. As was widely prescribed to treat skin diseases, fevers, malarial disorders, syphilis, lumbago, epilepsy, anemia, ulcers, etc ... 

The drawer yielded an enpty packet of paracetamol but nothing else. I went down the hallway to Henry s study, which doubled as his surgery since Fd taken over his old room We kept the drugs stored there, as well as rmch of Henys other paraphernalia He was a hoarder and had kept all manner of ancient powders, bottles and medical instruments he d inherited fiomthe previous doctor. Keeping them probab broke ary nurrber of health regulations, but Henry had scant reg9rd for red tape and bureaucracy. 

Phosgene, a doubly noxious carbonic acid chloride (Cl-CO-Cl), could react with two proteins, I reasoned, and the novel cross-linked or double protein could elicit an immune response in the limg and consequent accumulation of fluid. So I proceeded, with Sam s encouragement, to syntliesize phosgene from the carbon eleven ( C02) produced by Martin Kamen in the 27.5 inch (70 cm) cyclotron near the Rat House, where I and Sam and Bill Libby had our laboratories. Mine, of course, amounted to less than eight feet [2.4 m] of bench in my office, which I had inherited from Henry Taube. Reduction of carbon dioxide over hot zinc powder was easy and quick. Then, addition of chlorine yielded the phosgene, all in about twenty minutes. We administered this to a poor rat and began to determine if the radioactivity was protein-bound as I expected. 

But, even out of gratitude for Ms rescue, Seton would not reveal Ms secret. Shortly afterward he died from the effects of his terrible tortures. Sendivogius married Seton s widow, and inherited the supply of red powder but although he spent years experimenting he could find no way to make more. He went to... 

As I have already pointed out, the notion of atom that Boyle inherits from Sennert is closely related to the chemical atomism of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Such atomism retained the concept of fixed chemical species and reduced microstructural speculation to the bare minimum. It is not the case, of course, that semipermanent material corpuscles are really required in order for something to be irreducible and intransmutable (hence elementary ). One need only think of the spectral colors. Despite Isaac Newton s personal commitment to a corpuscular ontology, his claim for the elementary character of the spectral colors required only that he demonstrate them to be caused by rays of unequal refrangibility, not that they be corpuscular. The claim that matter is corpuscular in nature receives support in the work of Boyle and Sennert from a host of additional empirical considerations beyond mere resistance to dissolution, such as the ability to penetrate the fine pores of filter paper, the fact that sublimation often produces finely divided powders, and so forth. 

In the first human studies, free non-esterified sitosterol was administered as powder, granules, or liquid suspension with daily intakes of 12-18 g. These studies showed 6-17% decreases in serum cholesterol concentrations with wide individual variations (Farquhar etal, 1956 Kalliomaki etal, 1957 Lees et al, 1977 Schlierf et al, 1978), but resulted in marked increases in plant sterol levels in plasma - especially of campesterol, which is absorbed better than sitosterol. This raised safety concerns in light of the description of sitosterolemia two years previously. Sitosterolemia is a recessively inherited disorder characterized by excessive absorption and high plasma levels of plant sterols, resulting in the premature development of atherosclerosis. 

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