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Wampole's Vaginal Cones with Picric Acid
Small boxes of old American patent medicine for women's diseases,
headache, stomach illness, menstruation, and birth control
Harry Finley created the images.
It's hard to imagine why Wampole put picric acid into these suppositories
meant for the vagina - but as a reader pointed out, the main use for these
suppositories might have been to kill sperm,
which sufficiently strong acid can do.
But "Picric acid or Trinitrophenol
is, by far, one of the
more dangerous chemicals being used today. Classified as a flammable solid when wetted with more than 30% water
(UN1344, class 4.1) and a class A high explosive
with less than 30% water (UN0154, class 1.1D), it has some very interesting
properties. It is explosive but also highly shock,
heat and friction sensitive. In fact, detonation with a speed and
power superior to that of TNT can occur by a 2 kg weight falling onto solid
picric acid from a height of 36 cm. Picric acid is
toxic by all routes of entry, it's also a skin irritant and allergen and
will produce toxic pro-ducts on decomposition.
"Picric acid is used primarily in the manufacture
of explosives and as an intermediate in dye manufacturing. It is
also present in many laboratories, for use as a chemical reagent. Water
is added to picric acid to act as a desensitizer. The wetted product is
significantly less shock sensitive than the dry acid. Picric acid is highly
reactive with a wide variety of chemicals and extremely susceptible to the
formation of picrate salts. Many of these salts are even more reactive and
shock sensitive than the acid itself." (From http://www.tc.gc.ca/canutec/en/articles/documents/picric.htm)
On 18 August 2008 the German online Spiegel
magazine(www.spiegel.de), Germany's most prominent news magazine, reported
that experts are demanding that picric acid be banned
from schools because of the danger of explosion. Accompanying photos
showed how two ships carrying the acid and TNT destroyed part of Halifax,
Nova Scotia, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions
in history. ("PIKRINSÄURE-ALARM 'Das Zeug gehört nicht
an Schulen.' Von Carola Padtberg. In den Chemieräumen unzähliger
deutscher Schulen lauert Gefahr: Trocknet Pikrinsäure, wird sie explosiv
wie TNT. Im Unterricht ist der unheilvolle Stoff längst überflüssig.
Darum fordern Experten: Weg damit!," http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/wissen/0,1518,572376,00.html)
Derived from Greek, picric means bitter.
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The pack of two boxes measures 3" x 2 3/16"
x 1 7/8" (both boxes together) (7.7 x 6 x 4.5 cm).
Acetanilid: "A white crystalline compound,
C6H5NH(COCH3), formerly used in medicine to relieve pain and reduce fever.
It has been replaced by safer agents because of its toxicity"(from
http://www.answers.com/topic/acetanilide). Hydrastine
is "[a] poisonous white alkaloid, C21H21NO6, obtained from the root
of the goldenseal and formerly used locally to treat inflammation of mucous
membranes," according to The American Heritage Dictionary. Thymol
derives from coal tar, the first substance implicated in cancer (1775).
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Putting fingers into the vagina was one of the problems Tampax
skirted by employing an applicator (see one of its earliest tampons here), although several early American tampons had
no applicators (for example, Wix). The Catholic Church
didn't want virgins putting ANYthing into their vaginas, including tampons
and you-know-what, which caused problems with sales. Read an early
study about the relative merits of pads and tampons that mentions this.
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© 2005 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
of the work on this Web site in any manner
or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org
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