Storing silver picrate

We have several small bottles of a pharmaceutical product from ca.
1937 which may not be safe to keep in our collection.  The product
is labelled as Compound Picatrol and (in small print) Silver
Picrate, 1% in a kaolin base.  One bottle is attached to a rubber
puffer and the white powder is leaking from it.  We can't expect the
rubber to last indefinitely either.  Our research indicates that
silver picrate is explosive, but whether it is a hazard in a 1%
concentration is unknown.  We're not chemists!

There's an article about how this product was used and a photo of a
bottle attached to a puffer from the British Medical Journal, May 29
1937 online at

    <URL:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2088950/pdf/brmedj04252-0014.pdf>

If anyone could advise we'd be very grateful.

Robyn Waymouth
Archivist
Archives Department
The Royal Women's Hospital
Locked Bag 300
Cnr Grattan St and Flemington Road
Parkville VIC 3052
Days working Monday-Thursday
+61 3 8345 3905


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 30:7
                  Distributed: Saturday, July 2, 2016
                        Message Id: cdl-30-7-019
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