the power of driving out impurities from the blood and tissues. Most notably is this the case with the poisonous products of syphilis. In its tertiary stages—and also earlier—this disease yields in the most rapid and unmistakable fashion to iodides; so much so that the administration of these salts is at present the best means of determining whether, for instance, a cranial tumour be syphilitic or not. No surgeon would think of operating on such a case until iodides had been freely administered and, by failing to cure, had proved the disease to be non-syphilitic. Another instance of this deobstruent power—“alterative,” it was formerly termed—is seen in the case of chronic lead poisoning. The essential part of the medicinal treatment of this condition is the administration of iodides, which are able to decompose the insoluble albuminates of lead which have become locked up in the tissues, rapidly causing their degeneration, and to cause the excretion of the poisonous metal by means of the intestine and the kidneys. The following is a list of the principal conditions in which iodides are recognized to be of definite value: metallic poisonings, as by lead and mercury, asthma, aneurism, arteriosclerosis, angina pectoris, gout, goitre, syphilis, haemophilia, Bright’s disease (nephritis) and bronchitis.
Small quantities of the iodate (KIO3) are a frequent impurity in iodide of potassium, and cause the congeries of symptoms known as iodism. These comprise dyspepsia, skin eruption and the manifestations which are usually identified with a “cold in the head.” In many cases, as in syphilis, aneurism, lead poisoning, &c., the life of the patient depends on the free and continued use of the iodide, and this is best to be accomplished by securing an absolutely pure supply of the salt. Another often successful method of preventing the onset of symptoms of poisoning is to administer small doses of ammonium carbonate with the drug, thereby neutralizing the iodic acid which is liberated in the stomach.
IODOFORM, CHI3, a valuable antiseptic discovered by
G. S. Sérullas in 1822; in 1834 J. B. Dumas showed that it
contained hydrogen. It is formed by the action of iodine and
aqueous potash on ethyl alcohol, acetone, acetaldehyde and
from most compounds containing the grouping CH3·CO·C−.
Its formation from alcohol may be represented thus:
C2H5OH + 4I2 + 6KHO = CHI3 + KHCO2 + 5KI + 5H2O. It crystallizes in
yellow hexagonal plates, melting at 119–120° C., and is readily
soluble in alcohol and ether, but is insoluble in water. It has a
characteristic odour and is volatile in steam. On reduction with
hydriodic acid, it yields methylene iodide, CH2I2.
More recently, iodoform has been prepared by the electrolysis of a solution of potassium iodide in the presence of alcohol or acetone, the electrolytic cell being fitted with a diaphragm, in order to prevent the hydrogen which is formed at the same time from reducing the iodoform, or from combining with the iodine to form hydriodic acid. K. Elbs uses a solution of potassium iodide and sodium carbonate in water, which with the necessary alcohol is contained in a porous cell fitted with a lead anode, whilst the cathode compartment contains a solution of caustic soda and a nickel electrode. The electrolysis is carried out at a temperature of 70° C., and a current density of one ampère per square decimetre is used. At the end of three hours a yield of 70% of the theoretical quantity is obtained.
IOLA, a city and the county-seat of Allen county, Kansas,
U.S.A., on the Neosho river, about 100 m. S. by W. of Kansas City.
Pop. (1890) 1706; (1900) 5791, of whom 237 were foreign-born
and 207 were negroes; (1905) 10,287; (1910) 9032. It
is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Missouri
Pacific and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. It is
pleasantly situated in a level valley where there is a great
abundance of natural gas and some fine building stone. The
city has large zinc smelters and zinc rolling-mills, a foundry,
machine shops, and manufactories of cement, sulphuric acid
and brick. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks,
gas plant and electric-lighting plant. Iola was founded in
1859 by a company whose members were dissatisfied with the
location of the county-seat at Humboldt. It became the county-seat
in 1865, was chartered as a city of the third class in 1870
and became a city of the second class in 1898. The rapid growth
of the city dates from the discovery of natural gas here, on
Christmas Day 1893.
IOLITE, a mineral occasionally cut as a gem-stone, and
named from the violet colour which it sometimes presents
(ἴον, “violet”; λίθος, “stone”). It is generally called by
petrographers cordierite, a name given by R. J. Haüy in honour
of the French mineralogist, P. L. Cordier, who discovered its
remarkable dichroism, and suggested for it the name dichroite,
still sometimes used. The difference of colour which it shows
in different directions is so marked as to be well seen without the
dichroscope. The typical colours are deep blue, pale blue and
yellowish grey. While the crystal as a whole shows these three
colours, each face is dichroic.
Iolite is a hydrous magnesium and aluminium silicate, with ferrous iron partially replacing magnesium. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system. In hardness and specific gravity it much resembles quartz. The transparent blue or violet variety used as a gem occurs as pebbles in the gravels of Ceylon, and bears in many cases a resemblance to sapphire. The paler kinds are often called water-sapphire (saphir d’eau of French jewellers) and the darker kinds lynx-sapphire; the shade of colour varying with the direction in which the stone is cut. From sapphire the iolite is readily distinguished by its stronger pleochroism, its lower density (about 2.6) and its inferior hardness (about 7).
Iolite occurs in granite and in true eruptive rocks, but is most characteristically developed as a product of contact metamorphism in gneiss and altered slates. A variety occurring at the contact of clay-slate and granite on the border of the provinces of Shimotsuké and Ködzuké in Japan has been called cerasite. It readily suffers chemical change, and gives rise to a number of alteration-products, of which pinite is a characteristic example.
Although iolite, or cordierite, is rather widely distributed as a constituent of certain rocks, fine crystals of the mineral are of very limited occurrence. One of the best-known localities is Bodenmais, in Bavaria, where it occurs with pyrrhotite in a granite matrix. It is found also in Norway, Sweden and Finland, in Saxony and in Switzerland. Large crystals are developed in veins of granite running through gneiss at Haddam, Connecticut; and it is known at many other localities in the United States. (F. W. R.*)
ION, of Chios, Greek poet, lived in the age of Pericles. At an
early age he went to Athens, where he made the acquaintance
of Aeschylus. He was a great admirer of Cimon and an opponent
of Pericles. He subsequently met Sophocles in his native island
at the time of the Samian war. From Aristophanes (Peace,
830 ff.) it is concluded that he died before the production of
that play (421). His first tragedy was produced between 452–449
B.C.; and he was third to Euripides and Iophon in the tragic
contest of 429. In a subsequent year he gained both the tragic
and dithyrambic prizes, and in honour of his victory gave a jar
of Chian wine to every Athenian citizen (Athenaeus p. 3). He
is further credited by the scholiast on Aristophanes (loc. cit.)
with having composed comedies, dithyrambs, epigrams, paeans,
hymns, scolia, encomia and elegies; and he is the reputed
author of a philosophical treatise on the mystic number three.
His historical or biographical works were five in number, and
included an account of the antiquities of Chios and of ἐπιδημίαι,
recollections of visitors to the island.
See C. Nieberding, De Ionis Chii vita (1836, containing the fragments); F. Allègre, De Ione Chio (1890), an exhaustive monograph; and Bentley, Epistola ad Millium.
IONA, or Icolmkill, an island of the Inner Hebrides, Argyllshire,
Scotland, 612 m. S. of Staffa and 114 m. W. of the Ross of
Mull, from which it is separated by the shallow Sound of Iona.
Pop. (1901) 213. It is about 312 m. long and 112 m. broad; its
area being some 2200 acres, of which about one-third is under
cultivation, oats, potatoes and barley being grown. In the rest
of the island grassy hollows, yielding pasturage for a few hundred
cattle and sheep and some horses, alternate with rocky elevations,
which culminate on the northern coast in Duni (332 ft.), from
the base of which a dazzling stretch of white shell sand, partly
covered with grass, stretches to the sea. To the south-west the
island is fringed with precipitous cliffs. Iona is composed
entirely of ancient gneisses and schists of Lewisian age; these
