- ment, to which some red precipitate was added.
Brugnatelli's Poudre Vermifuge was a sulphide of tin. Spielman's Vermifuge Electuary was simply tin filings and honey.
Oxide of tin is the basis of certain applications for the finger nails. As supplied by perfumers the pure oxide is coloured with carmine and perfumed with lavender. Piesse says pure oxide of tin is similarly used to polish tortoiseshell.
ZINC.
The earliest known description of zinc as a metal is found in the treatise on minerals by Paracelsus, and it is he who first designates the metal by the name familiar to us. Paracelsus says:
"There is another metal, zinc, which is in general unknown. It is a distinct metal of a different origin, though adulterated with many other metals. It can be melted, for it consists of three fluid principles, but it is not malleable. In its colour it is unlike all others, and does not grow in the same manner; but with its ultima materia I am as yet unacquainted, for it is almost as strange in its properties as argentum vivum."
The alloy of zinc with copper which we call brass was known and much prized by the Roman metal workers, and they also knew the zinc earth, calamine, and used this in the production of brass. Who first separated the metal from the earth is unknown; so too is the original inventor of white vitriol (sulphate of zinc). Beckmann quotes authorities who ascribe this to Julius, Duke of Brunswick, about 1570. Beckmann
