364 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November r, 1883, 



mil assert its supremacy as the prince, or, as I should 

 call it, the queen, of all cinchonas. Such, indeed, is the 

 import of its name, as 'the best of all barks' for the 

 production of quinine."* 



FALSIFICATION OF SULPHATE OF QUININE IN 

 PAWS. 



The trial of Henri Constant Lacombe, who was accused 

 of having adulterated a quantity of sulphate of quinine, 

 and of having sold such adulterated quinine to the " Assist- 

 ance Publique," came on for hearing in the 8th Chamber 

 of the Tribunal Correctiounel de Paris, on June 21, M. 

 Bagneris, president. 



The accused, who was described as a druggist, of the 

 Kue des Francs Bourgeois, Paris, forty years of age, was 

 charged under the article 1, section 182, of the law of 

 March 27, 1851, and 423 of the Code penal. 



It appeareil, according to the statement of the Procureur 

 de la Kepubliiiue, that the coutract for the supply of sulph- 

 ate of quiuine to the Pharmacie Centrale iles Hfipitaux 

 had been awarded for 18s2 to a M. Pressac, and this was the 

 person first of all proceeded against. Pressac, however, 

 declared that he had been only the intermediary and pnte- 

 iwm tor Lacombe, and the latter accepted the whole respons- 

 ibility and exonerated Pressac from all complicity in the 

 affair. 



The contract was for 50 kilogrammes of sulphate of 

 qviinine, to be delivered in monthly parcels. In December 

 last the attention of the director of the Pharmacie Centrale 

 des Hnpitaux was specially directed to the supplies received 

 in October and November, and a more minute examination 

 of the supply was entered upon than had previously been 

 made. 



It was found that the supplies previous to October were 

 satisfactory, but that the box received at the end of October 

 contained a fraudulent mixture of sulphate of quiuine and 

 cinchonidine ; that one of the boxes received in November, 

 which had been opened, but had not then been used from, 

 presented on the sui'faee a layer of sulphate of quinine 12 

 to 15 centimetres thick, the remainder consisting of a fraud- 

 ulent mixture; that the last box received at the end of 

 November, which was still intact and sealed with the band 

 of the contractor, was similary filled — namely, with a top 

 layer of pure sulphate of quinine and about four-fifths of a 

 fraudulent niixtm-e. 



Lacombe had stated, in explanation, that he had the 

 agency for the Milan quinine f.actory, ami he ileelared 

 that until the month of October he had supplied no 

 quiuine but theirs. In October, he said, he wished to 

 send in some quinine of the manufacture of Taillandier, 

 but, as he had that in boxes of different shape and cap- 

 acity from those of the Jlilan factory, he ha.l given 

 orders to mix together the two boxes of the Taillandier 

 quinine with two boxes of the Milan quinine, and to fill 

 with the mixture four boxi's exactly similar to those previously 

 furnished. He had noticed, too, that the Taillandier quinine 

 was of a finer appearance than the Italian product, and 

 therefore he had given instructions that a certain quantity 

 of the former should be kept back from the mixture and 

 put on the siu'face of each boxful. 



His assistant, who was charged with carrying out these 

 instructions, had in error taken two lioxcs of the Milan 

 factory, labelled ".solfato di conchiuina," and had used these 

 instead of "solfato di quinina." So Lacombe accounted for 

 the falsification, maintaining that be had never had a thought 

 of committnig a fraud. 



But the Procureiu* declared that his explanation was not 

 aibnissilile. In the first place, the supplies had not been 

 made in those boxes to ensure uniformity. The Ijoxes sent 

 in before October weighed 7 to H kUos. The four sent in 

 during Octoijer and November weighed only 5 kilos, each. 

 Secondly, the princi]ial substitution was not cinchonine, as 

 he had stated, but cinchonidine, a fact verified by the 

 analysis of the director, anil confirmed by the independent 

 analysis of JIM. Riche anil Jungfleisch. The Assistance 

 Publique had returned the falsified quinine to Lacombe, and 

 had demanded to be supplied with Pelletier"s quinine in 

 substitution; and when afterwards samples of the mixed 

 products were demanded at Laeombe's warehouse, the accused 

 had given them such as was required for the purposes of 



" ♦ " Yr.-bk. I'harm," 1»S0, page 500. 



his defence, and in no wise conformable to the- supply 

 which had been recognised to be adulterated. 



The Assistance Publique had jiroduced a bottle of sulphate 

 of quinine, which had been sent to the Hupital Bichart, 

 in which the experts had found A'i per cent of sulphate 

 of cinchonidine. That hospital had only been opened on 

 December 1, and it was shown that the svq)))Iy of the 

 quinine must have been made out of one of Laeombe's 

 later deUveries. 



It was shown that in August last the price of the Milan 

 quinine was 400f. per kilo., with a prospect of advancing. 

 Laeombe's contract price to the Assistance Publique was 

 'Alii, per kilo., and it was suggested that the accused had 

 recourse to this fraud in order to save himself from loss. 



His books showed that he had bought 10 kilos of TaU- 

 landier's quinine on September 20, 1882, at 365f. per kilo, 

 and it was also shown that he had bought 8 kilos of 

 cinchonidine in June and July from a M. Schiffmarm. 



In answer to questions put to him by the Court, the 

 accused said: — 



I am not guilty. I took the contract to supply the sulph- 

 ate of quiuine at 374f. per kilo., but it was wholly the 

 result of an error on the part of my assistant that the 

 einchonicUne of the Lombard house was substituted for 

 their quinine. 



M. Falcomaigne, on the part of the Milan house, showed 

 that the Fabrica Lombarda could not be in any way re- 

 sponsible for the affaii-; that it had even suffered by the 

 publicity which had been given to the facts; and he de- 

 manded that the accused should be required, in addition 

 to his punishment, to pay for a certain number of insertions 

 of the judgment, especially in the medical and phai-ma- 

 ceutical journals. 



After a .speech from M. Boyer for the defence, the 

 Tribunal gave judgment, in which it was stated: — "That 

 the falsification having been committed in regard to an 

 article which the accused knew was to be used for the 

 diseases of patients entrusted to pubhc charity, no extenu- 

 ation could be admitted. Lacombe is therefore condemned 

 to imprisonment for one year and to 50f. penalty. And 

 the CoiU"t orders that this judgnient shaU be aftixed to the 

 number of twelve copies, one of which shaU be attached 

 during twenty-four hours to the door of Laeombe's ware- 

 house, and that it shall be inserted in f lUl, at Laeombe's 

 expense, in the following journals : — La Rtpuhlique Fran^itise, 

 le Temps, Ic Fiyavo., le XlXe Swcle, le liappd^ le Petit 

 JovrnaL, V Viilon Fharmaceutujue^ le Repertoire de Journal, 

 lie J^harmacie et de Ckimie, le Gazette Hebdomadaire, le 

 (razeitc des /lupitaux, and le Froyres Medicals 



. Lacombe to pay the costs of the action. — Clteniist and 

 Druggist. 



The IxDTMiunREB Teee is doing well in the Northern 

 Territory. It is likely that the product will soon become 

 an article of export. — Planter and Farmer. 



L,\ST YR.ka the firm of Messrs. Merriton, Tait, and Wat- 

 son, of Glasgow, manufactured no less than 9,100 tons of 

 sugar machinery for Australia. — Sugar Planter. 



Sanit.vry Ke.vsons for the use of Sugar. — Dutrome 

 calls sugar "the most alimentary substance in nature." 

 Dr. Rush says sugar affords the greatest quantity of 

 nourishment, in a given quantity of matter of any sub- 

 stance in nature. Sir John Pringle tell us that the plague 

 has never been known to visit any country where sugar 

 composes a material part of the diet of the inhabitants. 

 Dr. Oullen is of opinion that the frequency of malignant 

 fevers of Jill lvin<ls has been lessened by the use of sugar. 

 The celebrated Trouchina recommended eau sacree (sweet- 

 ened water) for almost every malady. Dr. Frothergill was 

 very anxious that the price of sugar should be so far re- 

 duced as to make it accessible for the common people. Dr. 

 Franklin had taken large quantities of blackberry jam for 

 relief from paiu of the stoue, but discovered at length that 

 the sanitary property resided wholly in the sugar. Sugar 

 has been found to be an antidote to the poison of verdigris, 

 if taken speedily and in abundance. It has been said that 

 sugar injures the teeth, but this opinion does not deserve 

 a serious reflection. The pleutiful use of sugar is one of 

 the best preventatives of the disease produced by worms. 

 Nirture seems to have implanted a love for this aliment in 

 children as if it were on purpose to defend them from those 

 diseases. — San Francisco Merchant. 



