Flückiger[213] tests for small quantities of carbolic acid in creasote, by mixing a watery solution of the sample with one-fourth of its volume of ammonia hydrate, wetting the inside of a porcelain dish with this solution, and then carefully blowing bromine fumes on to the surface. A fine blue colour appears if carbolic acid is present, but if the sample consists of creasote only, then it is dirty green or brown. Excess of bromine spoils the reaction.[214] [213] _Arch. der Pharmacie_, cxiii. p. 30. [214] Creasote is, without doubt, poisonous, though but little is known of its action, and very few experiments are on record in which pure creasote has been employed. Eulenberg has studied the symptoms in rabbits, by submitting them to vaporised creasote--_i.e._, the vapour from 20 drops of creasote diffused through a glass shade under which a rabbit was confined. There was at once great uneasiness, with a watery discharge from the eyes, and after seven minutes the rabbit fell on its side, and was slightly convulsed. The cornea was troubled, and the eyes prominent; a white slime flowed from the mouth and eyes. After fifteen minutes there was narcosis, with lessened reflex action; the temperature was almost normal. There was rattling breathing, and in half an hour the animal died, the respiration ceasing, and fluid blood escaping from the nose. Section after death showed the brain to be hyperæmic, the mucous membranes of the air-passages to be covered with a thin layer of fluid blood, and the lungs to be congested; the right side of the heart was gorged with fluid blood. The _post-mortem_ appearances and the symptoms generally are, therefore, closely allied to those produced by carbolic acid. A dark colour of the urine has also been noticed. § 234. =Carbolic Acid in Organic Fluids or in the Tissues of the Body.=--If the routine process given at page 51, where the organic fluid is distilled in a vacuum after acidifying with tartaric acid, is employed, phenol or cresol, if present, will certainly be found in the distillate. If, however, a special search be made for the acids, then the fluid must be well acidified with sulphuric acid, and distilled in the usual way. The distillation should be continued as long as possible, and the distillate shaken up with ether in the apparatus figured at page 156. On separation and evaporation of the ether, the tar acids, if present, will be left in a pure enough form to show its reactions. The same process applies to the tissues, which, in a finely-divided state, are boiled and distilled with dilute sulphuric acid, and the distillate treated as just detailed.