SeuSp. Aceti. Distilled vinegar. Acetous acid.

Distil wine vinegar with a gentle heat as long as the drops fall free from an empyreuma.

The first pint that is drawn off is a weak vinous spirit, and should be taken away, another receiver being placed for the acid. Malt vinegar, however strong, is improper for distilling, because it so readily receives an empyreumatic taste from the mucilage which it contains; a circumstance to which the best wine vinegar is subject, if more than about two-thirds is drawn over. If' given, in the quantity of two or three ounces in a day for some time after bleeding, and purging where necessary, it has been recommended in maniacal cases. When vinegar is concentrated, it creates an appetite; hence Acetum Esurinum.- - Lythargyritis. See Plumbum, N° 2.- Prophylacticum (see Prophy-lace) is thus made. flor. lavend. et rorism. fol.

rutae, absinth. salviae, menth, āā m. i. aceti vini cong. i. infund. in B. A. per 8 dies. hujus tinct. i. camph. 3 iij. m. - Acetum proph. also called the vinegar ok The four thieves; for, during the plague of Marseilles, four persons, by the use of it, attended many of the sick unhurt; under the colour of their service, they robbed the sick and the dead: one of them being apprehended, saved himself from the gallows by discovering this remedy.

In the foreign pharmacopeias there arc many preparations in which vinegar is the menstruum; and luxury has introduced many as sauces, or to add a flavour or poignancy to sallads. With these last we have no business, and need only remark, that when the object is to give an additional warmth or stimulus, they are not misapplied. Vinegar of horse-radish and elder (Plenck Phar-mac. chirurg.) are chiefly useful as cosmetics. Vinegar of rue (idem) is supposed to be highly antiseptic; but the most useful acetum is the camphorated. A drachm of camphor is dissolved in ten ounces of good vinegar (id.); and a preparation not very dissimilar is recommended in mania by Mr. Pargeter. Numerous preparations under the title of aceta prophylactica, occur in the foreign dispensatories, which consist only of different aromatics infused in vinegar, differing from the fancies of the prescriber, but scarcely varying in the intention or effects.

Vinegar, we have said, may be concentrated by cold, and by distillation from powdered charcoal. What is called the acetic acid is vinegar, not only more concentrated, but somewhat different in its properties. It certainly possesses a larger proportion of oxygen, as will be evident from its preparation, which consists in distilling vinegar from its combination with metallic oxyds, chiefly from copper; and that this method not only enables it to rise without the usual proportion of water, but imparts oxygen, is evident from the same effect being produced by adding sulphuric acid to the union of vinegar with soda, when apart of the mineral acid is decomposed. The acetic acid is peculiarly volatile and pungent, the most carefully ground glass stoppers being unable to confine its fumes. Glass and gold can alone retain it without being injured. Its specific gravity is 1.0626. The salts produced by this acid are called acetats, while those made with the common acid are styled acetites. Though these salts differ somewhat in their properties, we have no evidence of their differing in their medical virtues. See. Fourcroy Connoissances, v. viii. Annales de Chymie, xxvii. 299.