I will just explain to younger members that the 'Lassaigne' sodium fusion test was commonly used to identify Nitrogen, often also Sulfur and Halogens, in an 'unknown' organic compound http://bit.ly/rfNaVI

I have posted elsewhere http://my.rsc.org/blogs/79/406 about (in the 1960s) being able to purchase chemicals, even a platinum wire (cost then 5 shillings, 25p) from 'Boots the Chemist' for my own personal chemistry set while at school. So anybody then could easily purchase potassium chlorate, sulfur, etc. Even highly toxic chemicals such as potassium cyanide and strychnine just required a letterhead and signature from a person of authority, not that I would have even ever contemplated trying to order. Those were the days of the real chemistry set, not the 'chemical-free' chemistry set. But we did carry out real practical experiments at school on a limited scale while the Chemistry schoolmaster regularly demonstrated metal - water reactions and gas preparations, sometimes even in open classrooms with a corner fume cupboard if lucky. From what I understand from 'Storify', all the captions and comments relate to the USA and not the UK. I wonder if anybody in the UK has any similar stories to recall: I doubt although I may be wrong but surprised.

In the UK, whereas youngsters used to experiment with the 'gunpowder mixture', later at college with 'nitrogen triiodide', (not me), all were 'aware' and nothing drastic ever occurred to my knowledge, at least I never read anything otherwise. I do believe that real practical chemistry at school, college and university is a must and am saddened that nowadays Chemistry major students do not have to identify a binary inorganic mixture and an unknown organic compound 'spot' both in course work and in practical exams. In the case of the organic 'spot', element eg. sodium fusion (Lassaigne) tests, classification tests, and making small-scale derivatives, were vital. All this seems to have been lost, the analytical problem solving, well at least the 'wet' chemistry although I know that full spectroscopic identification is used in course and project work, but is wet chemistry used in any practical exams apart from GCE A-level titration exercises?