X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Magnesium sulfate


Geoffrey Wilkinson

One of his uncles, an organist and choirmaster, had married into a family that owned a small chemical company making Epsom and Glauber's salts for the pharmaceutical industry; this is where he first developed an interest in chemistry.

Magnesium sulfate

It is often encountered as the heptahydrate sulfate mineral epsomite (MgSO4ยท7H2O), commonly called Epsom salt, taking its name from a bitter saline spring in Epsom in Surrey, England, where the salt was produced from the springs that arise where the porous chalk of the North Downs meets non-porous London clay.

Magnesium sulfate has been used as an experimental treatment of Irukandji syndrome caused by envenomation by certain species of Irukandji jellyfish, however the efficacy of this treatment remains unproven.

Relaxation technique

A technique growing in popularity is flotation therapy, which is the use of a float tank in which a solution of Epsom salt is kept at skin temperature to provide effortless floating.



see also