Sedative salt

Macquer stated that borax contains an Alkali like the basis of Sea-salt. This Alkali is not perfectly neutralized by the sedative salt [boric acid], which is also contained in Borax, for its alkaline properties are so perceptible as to have led some Chymists to think that Borax was only an Alkali of a particular kind (96). 

In 1747—48 Theodore Baron de Henouville (1715-1768) proved that borax is composed of sedative salt and soda (65). After A. S. Marggraf had investigated alumina ( the earth from alum ), Baron de Henouville in 1760 published a paper on the basis of alum. Although some of his observations were erroneous, he pointed out the close rela-... 

In his Elective Attractions, Torbern Bergman stated emphatically that the so-called sedative salt is not a salt but an acid. The substance commonly called sedative salt, said he, is more nearly allied to acids than any other class of bodies. It reddens turnsole and saturates alkalis and soluble earths. It also dissolves various metals, and has other properties which shew its acid nature, and it seems better entitled to the name of acid of borax than to that of sedative salt (66). 

After the chemical revolution, sedative salt came to be regarded as an acidic oxide, boric (or boracic) acid. Even at the close of the eighteenth century, its chemical nature was not understood. In a letter to the Annales de Chimie et de F ysiqtie, A. N. Scherer wrote in 1799 I have just been assured that Crell has recognized carbon as the radical of boracic acid (67). 

Because of the practical importance of Hdfers discovery, the Academy of Sciences at Paris offered a prize for the best paper (a) on a chemical investigation of borax and sedative salt and the earth of crude East Indian borax (b) on the artificial preparation of borax or sedative salt or on a satisfactory substitute for borax, especially for soldering, and (c) on the discovery of natural sedative salt (boric acid) elsewhere than m the marsh of Monte Rotondo (107). 

Willem Homberg prepares sedative salt (boric acid). 

In 1702, William Homberg heated borax with iron(n) sulphate and obtained by sublimation a compound he called sedative salt , though it was not a salt but boric acid.94 The boron hydrides, first studied by A. Stock in 1909, have provided a rich source of new chemistry.95 Pliny described a silvery cup, lighter than any known metal, once owned by the emperor Tiberius. Some have speculated that the Romans might have stumbled on aluminium.96 Though alum was known in antiquity, the... 

People widely used borax, one of the boron compounds, back in the Middle Ages. Probably borax had been known much earlier it was reported that in the first millenium A.D. borax was used for soldering metals. However, the composition of natural borax remained unclear for a long time. Boric acid was obtained for the first time in 1702 by the Dutch physician W. Homberg who heated borax with sulphuric acid. It was used in medicine as Romberg s sedative salt . In 1747 the French chemist Th. Baron tried to determine the composition of borax. He found that it contained Romberg s salt and soda he was quite right now we know that borax is a sodium salt of boric acid... 

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