PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 161 
objects then, when the ladies will have an opportunity of admir- 
ing them, I am sure he will not be alone on the occasion. I 
therefore, with very great pleasure, beg to move that the best 
thanks of the meeting be conveyed to Dr. Maddox for his paper and 
to Mr. How for the representation of the objects. (Loud cheers.) 
At the meeting for May I have a paper on paraftine oils by Dr. 
Wilcox, a short communication from Dr. Maddox upon a wire 
clip, and the paper by Dr. Wallich, to which I have already 
alluded. Mr. Deane is here to-night, and I don’t know whether 
five miniutes would not be well bestowed in hearing some few 
observations from him upon the importance of microscopic inves- 
tigations ; I will therefore ask Mr. Deane to occupy just that five 
minutes, and then I will adjourn the meeting. 
Mr. Henry Deanr.—The remarks that I have to make are 
simply with a view to showing the great practical value of the 
microscope under circumstances where evidence is required to 
trace the source of a substance which has been used, whether 
properly or improperly, but which it is desirable to trace with as 
much accuracy as possible. I was lately taken down to a place 
near Shepton Mallet, where a murder had been committed upon a 
child seven months old, by means of corrosive sublimate—-bichloride 
of mercury. The murderess of the child was the wife of a farmer 
in a good position in life, and highly respected; she had, a month 
previously, obtained a packet of Steedman’s powders, which are 
powders used for children who are cutting their teeth, and I believe 
that they are very useful powders, and contain nothing likely to 
cause harm. -It appears that, having given the child one of these 
powders, which did it a great deal of good, the mother caused 
another to be administered a month afterwards when the father 
was away, he having mixed the first one himself, so that she did 
not see it. The mother mixed this second powder, and ten minutes 
after it had been administered by the little maid the child was 
dead, the effect of bichloride of mercury being to close the glottis 
and stop the respiration, so that the effect in the case of a child 
like that would be that it would expire almost instantly. The 
doctor was called in and a post-mortem examination was made, 
and upon a thorough examination of the remaining powders it 
was found that there was one packet which was not lke the five 
others that were left with it, and on testing it it showed very con- 
clusively that it contained corrosive sublimate. Of course there 
was an inquest, and a strong impression got abroad that, 
by some surreptitious means or carelessness, this corrosive 
sublimate had got amongst the proper powders in the factory 
where they were made up. I happened to be a very old friend of 
the proprietor of these powders, and he came to me, at the sugges- 
tion of his solicitor, and asked me to go down with my microscope 
and see if I could make out anything as to the sources of the 
powders. It appeared that the shepherd had had a lump of cor- 
rosive sublimate in his pocket during the last season, which he used 
for the purpose of destroying the “fly ” in the backs of his sheep, 
