Prep. Acetic acid, forty ounces, or a sufficiency; carbonate of potash, twenty ounces. To the acetic acid, placed in a thin porcelain basin, add gradually the carbonate of potash; then strain; if necessary add a few additional drops of acetic acid; evaporate the liquor until the salt is dried; then raise the heat cautiously so as to liquefy the product. Allow the basin to cool; and when the salt has solidified, and while it is still warm, break it in fragments and put into stoppered bottles. Simply a substitution of acetic for carbonic acid, which comes off with effervescence.

Prop. & Comp. Foliated satiny masses, this appearance being caused by the crystallization after fusion; neutral in reaction, and deliquescent; very soluble in water, also in alcohol. The solution of acetate of potash in water should not be precipitated by chloride of barium or nitrate of silver; or if the silver salt does precipitate it, this is again dissolved by water or dilute nitric acid. With a watery solution of the salt, tartaric acid causes a crystalline precipitate (bitartrate of potash), and a dilute solution of perchloride of iron strikes a blood-red Colour. The solution is unaffected by hydrosulphuret of ammonia. With sulphuric acid it gives off vapours of acetic acid, and yields 88.8 per cent. of sulphate of potash. Composition (KO, C4 H3 O3).

Therapeutics. When taken internally in moderate doses and diluted it becomes absorbed, and the acetic acid, being destroyed or burnt off in the blood, appears in the urine as carbonate, rendering that fluid alkaline, and often increasing the secretion; in large doses and concentrated, it produces a slight purgative action. It is used chiefly for its diuretic action, in various forms of dropsies: sometimes to produce the alkaline effects on the blood and secretions.

Dose. 10 gr. to 60 gr. as a diuretic; as a purgative, 120 gr., upwards.

Adulteration. It may contain traces of sulphates and chlorides, detected by the above tests. Acetate of silver is rather insoluble, and hence may be precipitated if the solution is very concentrated.