Fuel, Grant’s Patent. This is formed of coal dust, 1 cwt., and coal-tar pitch, 20 lbs., melted together by a heat of 220° Fahr., and moulded into blocks the size of common bricks, under a pressure of 5 or 6 tons. These are, lastly, whitewashed. It is heavier than common steam coal, and is said to go fully one third further, by which facility of transport and economy is combined.
Fuel, Purified Block. This is prepared by the torrefaction of washed coal dust, and is said to possess in a remarkable degree the advantages of both coke and steam coal.
FU′LIGOKA′LI. Prep. (Dr Polya.) Caustic potassa, 1 part; water, q. s.; dissolve; add of wood soot, 5 parts; boil 1 hour, dilute with water, filter, evaporate the filtrate to dryness, and put the product at once into warm, dry bottles.—Dose, 2 to 3 gr., thrice a day, made into pills, which must be coated with gum and kept from the air. (See below.)
Fuligokali, Sulphuretted. Syn. Fuligokali sulphuretum, L. Prep. (Dr Polya.) Caustic potassa, 7 parts; sulphur, 2 parts; water, q. s.; dissolve with heat, add of fuligokali, 30 parts, evaporate to dryness, and preserve it in well-corked dry bottles.—Dose, &c. As the last.
Obs. M. Gibert states that he has tried both fuligokali and sulphuretted fuligokali on his patients at the Hospital Saint-Louis, both internally and externally, with manifest advantage in various obstinate chronic skin diseases. He made a pomade of 30 grammes (say 1 oz.) of lead ointment, and 1 or 2 grammes (say 20 to 25 gr.) of fuligokali, in which he recognised positive resolvent, detersive, and stimulant properties. See Anthracokali.
FULLER’S EARTH. Syn. Cimolia, C. terra, L. A soft, unctious, friable, greenish or yellowish-grey species of clay, containing 53% of silica, 10% of alumina, and about 9% of oxide of iron. After being dug out of the
earth it is thoroughly dried in ovens, and then thrown into cold water, where it soon falls to powder, and is purified by the common process of edulcoration or washing-over. It is extensively used to extract oil and grease from cloth in the process of ‘fulling,’ it forms an excellent filtering powder for oils, and is applied as a cooling and healing dressing by the poor to inflamed breasts, excoriations, &c.
FUL′MINATING COMPOUNDS. These are numerous, and are scattered through several distinct classes of bodies. Among the most powerful and dangerous are the chloride and iodide of nitrogen and the fulminates of silver and mercury.
Fulminating An′timony. Syn. Pyrophorus of antimony, L. Prep. Tartar emetic (dried), 100 parts; lampblack or charcoal powder, 3 parts; triturate together, put it into a crucible that it will three fourths fill (previously rubbed inside with charcoal powder), cover it with a layer of dry charcoal powder, and lute on the cover; after 3 hours’ exposure to a strong heat in a ‘reverberatory furnace,’ and 6 or 7 hours’ repose to allow it to cool, &c., cautiously transfer the solid contents of the crucible, as quickly as possible, without breaking it, to a wide-mouthed stoppered phial, where, after some time, it will spontaneously crumble down into a powder.
Obs. When the above process is properly conducted, the resulting powder contains potassium, and fulminates violently on contact with water. A piece the size of a pea introduced into a mass of gunpowder explodes it on being thrown into water, or on its being moistened in any other manner.