This section is from the book "A Text-Book Of Pharmacology, Therapeutics And Materia Medica", by T. Lauder Brunton. Also available from Amazon: A text-book of pharmacology, therapeutics and materia medica.
Bisulphide of carbon should be kept in well-stopped bottles, in a cool place, remote from lights or fire.
Characters. - A clear, colourless, highly refractive liquid, very diffusive, having a strong, characteristic odour, a sharp, aromatic taste, and a neutral reaction.
Solubility. - It is insoluble in water; soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, and fixed or volatile oils. •
Reactions. - Specific gravity 1.272. It vaporises abundantly at ordinary temperatures, is highly inflammable, boils at 46° C. (114.8° F.), and, when ignited, burns with a blue flame, producing carbonic and sulphurous acids.
It should not affect the colour of blue litmus-paper moistened with water (absence of sulphurous acid). A portion evaporated spontaneously in a glass vessel should leave no residue (sulphur). Test-solution of acetate of lead agitated with it should not be blackened (absence of hydrosulphuric acid).
Action. - When inhaled it is a rapid, powerful, but transient anaesthetic.
Uses. - It can be used to produce local anaesthesia by atomi-sation. It has been employed as a local irritant in enlarged lymphatic glands, neuralgia, and deafness accompanied by insufficiency of wax; and has been given as an internal antiseptic in enteric fever, in the form of a mixture with water and peppermint oil.1
1 Dujardin-Beaumetz, Bull. Gen. de Therap., Aout, 1885, p. 97.
 
Continue to: