Preparation

This is prepared by treating marble with muriatic acid, evaporating the resulting solution to dryness, dissolving the residue in its weight and a half of water, and filtering. Marble is a compound of carbonic acid and oxide of calcium, muriatic acid of chlorine and hydrogen. The chlorine of the latter unites with the calcium of the former to produce chloride of calcium, which remains in solution; the carbonic acid of the marble escaping, and the liberated oxygen and hydrogen combining to form water. The subsequent steps of the process are merely intended to furnish a pure solution of the chloride, of definite strength.

Properties and incompatibilities. This solution is inodorous, has a bitterish, acrid taste, and yields precipitates with sulphuric acid, the soluble sulphates, phosphates, tartrates, and carbonates, the soluble salts of silver and lead, the soluble protosalts of mercury, and the pure alkalies.

Effects on the System

Chloride of calcium is a local irritant, capable, when taken too largely into the stomach, of producing nausea, vomiting, purging, pains in the abdomen, and precordial tenderness, indicating the existence of inflammation of the alimentary mucous membrane. it is thought also, in over-doses, to act on the nervous system, causing giddiness, trembling, small pulse, cold sweats, convulsions, paralysis, coma, and death. in medicinal doses, it increases the secretions, and exercises an alterative influence, exhibited by the softening and gradual dispersion of chronic swellings and indurations.

Therapeutic Application

Before the discovery of iodine, and its use as a remedy in scrofula, chloride of lime was among the most popular remedies in that complaint. it is still occasionally used in the treatment of scrofulous swellings of the external and internal absorbent glands; and, from the united testimony of many practitioners, must be admitted to possess useful powers in these affections. it is especially recommended in tabes mesenterica. The dose is from thirty minims to a fluidrachm, to be repeated two or three times a day, and gradually in-creased until it evinces that it is acting, either by nausea or some other disturbance of the system. The dose has been increased to three fluidrachms or more. The solution has also been used externally in the form of a bath.