I've pulled a ton of awesome stuff out of trash cans over the years but my favorite
find is definitely this chemical formulary book from 1933. I mean there's just so many
brilliant recipes inside from things like soaps and cosmetics to explosives and medications this
thing would have been a gold mine to a nerd living in the 30s now if you've seen any of my previous
videos on this book you'll know there's some just absolutely insane recipes in here too so
of course those will be the ones I'll be testing today now I know what you're thinking why on Earth
am I making a part three of this series when I was nearly banned for the first two videos
well after chatting with YouTube a bit it seems they didn't like my use of cannons which I guess
makes sense so no more cannons something I should have mentioned last time is that I'm literally
a chemist I have the degree I've worked in a lab I've even taught it and yes the experiments you're
about to see are extremely dangerous however I am more than qualified to do them in a safe and
controlled manner and no you should not attempt them because you'd probably get killed I mean
there's a lot of reasons why I do this stuff I mean yeah it's fun but I think that there's a lot
to learn from the historic aspects of chemistry and I also want students out there to see that
science is a lot cooler than just filling out worksheets anyway let's see how much further
I can get through this book without violating the Geneva Convention oh yeah I'll be testing
recipes from a bunch of volumes this time not just the first one have you ever thought that crayons
just aren't bright enough well it turns out making a fluorescent crayon is actually pretty easy all
you need are some uranium salts okay but seriously uranium in a crayon what were they thinking this
is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of I can't wait to try it out in this recipe I'll
be using uranyl nitrate as the uranium salt heh uranyl now uranium salts are radioactive but what
really makes them scary is their chemical toxicity uranium is a heavy metal after all on the flip
side many uranium salts are absolutely gorgeous strongly fluorescent in some of the most beautiful
chemical compounds out there it's quite unfair how something that looks so yummy is actually so toxic
as for the crayon I ground up the calcium carbonate with the plaster dissolve the uranyl
nitrate in water and then mixed them together the resultant mix isn't as fluorescent as it results
in a uranyl carbonate precipitate but without the calcium carbonate the crayons would be too hard to
draw with I put the paste in a syringe to act as a mold and let it harden for a few days here is
the finished uranium crayon it's really more of a chalk which means it's prone to making toxic
dust as you use it it does glow nicely under UV light though yeah it's actually pretty hard
to draw with and it is pretty crumbly as well toxicity aside it does look pretty neat under
UV still though the coolness to Danger ratio isn't quite worth it in my opinion the recipe
said that anthracene could be used instead of the uranium so I made some crayons based on anthracene
as well these actually glowed brighter and with a blue glow instead of green these anthracene
crayons are significantly less toxic than the uranium ones as well which is an added benefit
this one's just in time for the never-ending coof season it's a sore throat remedy now the
ingredients in here look pretty sketchy so I guess I'm just gonna have to make
some and see what it does I'm not sure what the function of any of
these ingredients is honestly and in fact the recipe is quite toxic now you'd think
that mixing a strong Lewis acid with a potent oxidizer in an organic solvent
oh I uh don't think that was supposed to happen maybe those beautiful flames are supposed to
distract you from your sore throats either that or I made a bad assumption when the recipe called for
a tincture I figured it meant making a tincture of all that stuff but in hindsight it probably meant
using a ferric chloride tincture as one of the ingredients that would make more sense because
tinctures of ferric chloride were used in medicine a long time ago and it would also keep the iron
dosages below lethal levels now this auto ignition reaction is actually quite interesting the sheer
act of dissolving the anhydrous ferric chloride in ethanol does release a substantial amount of
heat and it boils nearly as soon as it's mixed even so I don't think that's the only factor for
flames here ferric chloride is a strong Lewis acid and it wouldn't surprise me if it's generating
chloric acid on solvation with the chlorate this compound reacts violently with organic compounds
and all the little explosions going on in there make me think that chloric acid is playing a role
I've mixed up a new batch of this stuff by first diluting the ferric chloride in water
and then adding the other chemicals now if the first reaction wasn't enough to dissuade
using it as medicine I better stick in some aluminum foil in there to see what it does
wow not only is this stuff toxic and a fire hazard it's also highly corrosive neat
if you're an American with asthma you probably have to pay a lot for inhalers so instead consider
this homeopathic alternative asthma relief cigarette I bet your lungs feel amazing after one
of these I'm kidding this is a horrible idea this is a recipe for a magnetizable fluid now honestly
I don't see this working that well I'll take any excuse to play with Mercury mmmm Mercury yet again
it's unfair that something so beautiful has to be so toxic now to be honest the liquid metal itself
is actually quite inert but it does evaporate enough to be a problem if there's a spill now
the only thing more toxic than the mercury in this formula is the volumetric measurements of solid
powders gross the powders don't seem to dissolve at all but that's probably intentional check out
what happens when I bring a magnet near it there seems to be a distance and corresponding field
strength where the effect is most dramatic here you can see the field lines actually quite well
but when the magnet gets too close it just bunches up the iron powder there this is actually a neat
effect really because a strong magnet makes the liquid act like a switch between dull and shiny
don't you hate how easy it is to get severe burns when playing with fire well lucky for you here's a
nice recipe for cold fire now according to the book this stuff can be applied to the skin and
hair without causing injury now there's a lot to unravel with this one cold fire how's that
even possible also carbon tetrachloride isn't that the stuff that got banned from nearly everything
because it it causes cancer it destroys the ozone layer and it's extremely toxic to the liver
oh yes yes it is so it does seem a bit sketchy to you know rub this stuff all of your body and light
it on fire but even so I think it's worth trying out let's see how inflammable this stuff really is
gosh inflammable such a stupid word well that's a cool looking flame is it actually cold though
let's try letting some paper on fire with it
okay so it's not that cold but it does take a while for it to catch on fire so that is pretty
nifty now check this out if I dip the paper in the burning liquid the part that comes in contact with
the liquid doesn't actually burn that's because only half of this mix combusts in the flame and
that's the carbon disulfide the tetrachloride actually poisons the fuel and absorbs a
substantial amount of heat as it evaporates this protects whatever surface the mix is burning on
in fact this is why carbon tetrachloride was used in fire extinguishers before they figured
out it was cancer juice ignoring the huge health risks of the chemicals this stuff probably could
be put on skin and lit on fire without causing burns as tempting as it is though even I'm not
dumb enough to try it like seriously every single part about this is stupidly toxic
there's actually another cold fire recipe just below it in this book and although not quite as
dramatic it's one popular among chemistry teachers and has the added benefit of not inducing cancer
in the audience I like to add a pinch of baking soda to the mix to make the flame bright yellow
if you're like most people and stare at screens all day there's a good chance you've dealt with
dry and irritated eyes at some point so what's the solution Mercury salts and opium applied
directly to your eyeballs if that doesn't make your eyes feel better I don't know what will
I've always been looking for a method of hardening copper and check it out most of
what I need is just pee this is another one of those formulas where I'm not quite certain
what the function of the ingredients is I bet the hardening here is just due to the
quenching and the chemicals probably just clean and passivate the surface all right here we go
mmmm that smells amazing okay so is the copper actually harder now let me give
these a good scraping here okay yeah I think the uh I think the treated one is
a little bit harder it doesn't scratch as deep at least I'm curious how the structure
changed so I'm bending an untreated one as a control now for the treated one
huh it feels stiffer but it's actually easier to fold interesting
no parade is complete without purple flames and Mercury fumes and this torch has them
both look at that 10 percent calomel so calomel is mostly just Mercury so burning
this in a parade is just going to fumigate the entire audience however it probably does make a
gorgeous purple flame so I'm kind of tempted to try it out anyway I couldn't justify spraying
hot Mercury fumes everywhere so I swapped out the calomel with chlorinated rubber the fumes
are still going to be awful at least it's not Mercury I guess well here goes nothing foreign
that's the most purple thing I've ever seen in my life amazing it looks like the Mercury
wasn't needed after all just a source of chlorine to deepen the flame colors
this book is very generous with its use of cyanide whether you need to clean some coins
or just keep your engine running smoothly they always find a way to throw some cyanide in the
mix how lucky for us they also include this convenient procedure for dealing with your
inevitable cyanide poisoning the first steps aren't anything crazy but check out step
four that is one of the best sentences I've ever read if patient survives give a emetic
and after vomiting supportive of strong coffee with brandy or whiskey let's party you survived
don't you hate it how easy it is to ruin furniture by spilling acid on it well thankfully this can
be a thing of the past with this acid proofing concoction I love how making acid-proof wood
involves pouring boiling acid on it what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right the coats of
the first solution didn't do anything crazy but things got interesting with the second one the
wood started changing color and dipping the paintbrush back into the solution caused it
to change color as well after the wood dried it became much darker and the second coating made it
turn black the chemistry here is a polymerization reaction that produces a polyaniline compound
these compounds are both acid resistant and potent dyes by some crazy coincidence a chemist
friend of mine stumbled upon this very recipe in a publication from 1925 on building a low-cost
chemistry teaching lab okay so is it actually acid proof let's dump some concentrated hydrochloric
acid on there and find out huh it really didn't do much to either of them interesting
let's try something much nastier this time sulfuric acid tends to
chew up most organic stuff it encounters because it's a potent dehydrating agent
yeah it looks like it chewed up the untreated stuff at least let's drop the base and investigate
the surface of the untreated stuff has been turned into a gummy mess the treated piece has
been affected too though it's not pitted nearly as badly but some of the treatment does rub off
I'm not sure how much of it is the linseed oil versus the wooden polyaniline either way
it's not acid proof but it is acid resistant and it's certainly an interesting formula
this one's from the alloy section it's an alloy that's apparently useful in making
electrical fuses now I'm not exactly one to fuse my electronics but check out that melting
point this stuff should be able to melt in hot water which I think is pretty impressive for
such easy to find Metals I'll definitely be trying this one out I started by melting the
lead and bismuth together then once that was molten I mixed in the tin shot unfortunately
I had a small incident which required me to melt it all back down again before casting
it into cute little coin sized pieces so it doesn't melt in hot water one way to find out
hmm any second now okay the water is clearly boiling at this point and the metal is still solid
what's going on it looks like the book lied to me it turns out that no mix of these three metals can
have a melting point of 168 Fahrenheit well that's disappointing but maybe it still works as a fuse
I'll take that as a yes this one looks pretty simple it's a remedy for sneezing I mean you
can't sneeze if you're unconscious right okay this one's called toilet milk what what is toilet milk
I I looked it up on Google and I couldn't find any meaningful answers I guess I'm just going
to make some of this stuff and see what it does I figured this was supposed to be an emulsion
of some sort so I started by dissolving the cetyl alcohol in the oil then added glycerin after that
as for the soap I threw in a little lard soap solution and also added a bit of freshly diced
bar soap for a good measure I added the water but the compounds really didn't want to mix
at this point so I tossed the whole thing in the microwave for a few minutes and after shaking the
mix was nice and uniform well I still don't know what this stuff is oh yeah I forgot the perfume
okay now it makes sense this is clearly some kind of highly moisturizing soap which
means only one thing it's obviously for nourishing your toilet I can't
think of a better mix for cleaning and lubricating those pipes drink up Nessie
this one seems easy enough determining the polarity of batteries this is about as simple
as it gets for our recipe so I felt it was worth trying out all right here we go oh yeah look
at that it does indeed make a brown spot the battery drives an electrolysis reaction that
oxidizes I had died into iodine at the positive terminal and that's what gives it that color Nifty
there's a lot of cool electroplating techniques in this book but here's a recipe that simply
chemically plates silver onto glass and ignoring the potential explosion hazard there of ammonia
and silver this actually seems like a cool way to make some DIY mirrors I made my silver nitrate
by dissolving silver bars in nitric acid and yeah that gas is as toxic as it looks now this
first solution here generates a silver ammonia complex called Tollen's reagent it's used to
detect aldehydes in the lab this compound has to be used fairly quickly because it'll degrade into
the extremely unstable silver nitride I taped off one side of these glass slides in order to
restrict plating to one surface after mixing in the sugar solution silver began to coat the
inside of the beaker and after a few minutes it was super shiny oh wow that turned out way
better than I expected that's actually a really nice mirror I can't believe how well that worked
this beaker is even more impressive though look at that incredible finish it's funny because the
recipes in this old book feel like mixing potions and casting spells sometimes and this is a perfect
example of that I just made a dark murky liquid that coats glass in a brilliant silver shine this
is straight up witchcraft chemistry is just modern alchemy after all and the best part
is that the science doesn't kill the magic now before I end this video I feel like I owe it
to the editors to clarify some stuff it may seem like all the recipes in these old books are just
insane but I'm focusing on the craziest recipes here in reality these books were an incredible
resource for their day and not just for chemists either you'll have all kinds of formulas for all
different Industries all in a single place if you look at the inventories for some old libraries
you'll find that some of them still have like a hundred copies on hand just because they were
so popular back then yeah we've come a long way in 90 years but the same time it's impressive to
see what they're able to accomplish back then as well so it's been a while since I've posted
anything uh actually about a year and I'm sure you're wondering why that is and uh so I actually
moved and I built a new lab uh and that's taken up like you know all my time uh it's been a crazy
production but I mean just moving all my heavy stuff and then you know all the construction so
that's uh that's been you know quite an ordeal but I also made a new friend here I got I got Ophelia
here she's uh she's a great helper for me but uh yeah uh now that I have my operation running
again I'm gonna be posting a lot more videos so uh stay tuned hey good morning you're a silly girl
you're a good girl