Formula

Nh4c1.

Derivation

Chloride of Ammonium is obtained by neutralizing hydrochloric acid with ammonia and evaporating to dryness. It is in the form of a snow-white, crystalline powder, soluble in two and a half parts of cold water, and sparingly soluble in alcohol. It has a pungent, saline taste.

Medical Properties And Action

In large doses it is an irritant poison, with a purging action; but in small doses it is a powerful resolvent alterative; it is also refrigerant and anodyne. Its action upon the system closely resembles that of mercury as an alterative.

Externally it is used as a discutient application, and as a cold lotion in fevers, hernia, etc.

Therapeutic Uses

It is employed internally in amenorrhoea, rheumatic affections, chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, dropsical affections, hemorrhages, whooping-cough and myalgia. Externally in abscesses of the mamma, skin diseases, ecchymosis of the eye, hydrocele, senile gangrene, gonorrhoea, leucorrhoea, etc.

Dose

Of chloride of ammonium, gr. v-xxx, every two or three hours, in powder or mucilage.

Dental Uses

It is employed in facial neuralgia, in doses of repeated four times daily. Externally it is used as an application to indolent ulcers, for its stimulating effect. ,As a gargle, it is employed in the strength of to of water. It is also applied to cancerous tumors, and has been used to restore zinc which has become deteriorated from long use in laboratory work. Chloride of ammonium (sal ammoniac) is also used as a flux, in refining gold for laboratory use.