162 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
Many of you will know, no doubt, that this “ fly,” as it is called, is 
avery destructive pest indeed, and in some seasons many sheep may 
have to be destroyed in consequence of its ravages. The best and 
quickest way of getting rid of the larve of these insects, which 
are deposited in the tick of the sheep, is to touch up the sore 
place with a bit of corrosive sublimate. When the shepherd 
returned his piece of sublimate to his master it was put into a 
drawer in a bureau to which nobody would have access, in a par- 
ticular room where some other things for sheep-dressing and farm- 
ing purposes were kept. In the course of the evidence it was 
elicited that there was such a piece of corrosive sublimate in this 
drawer, and that the police had got possession of it; and as the 
coroner had intimation that I was going down for the purpose of 
examining it with the microscope, he obtained a portion of the piece 
of sublimate which was kept in the bureau, and also of the sub- 
limate which was mixed with the Steedman’s powder. On exa- 
mining these in his presence, I found that they were identical. 
And why? You would think that the two lots of corrosive sub- 
limate would be very free from extraneous matters which could 
serve to identify it! I saw that they were identical, however, and 
that the powdered lot came out of the larger parcel, from the 
circumstance of its containing particles of the saneous discharge 
of the matter from the sheep’s back, and also portions of a fibrous 
substance, which proved to be rubbings-up of the shepherd’s 
pocket; so that whoever had committed this frightful crime had 
taken a portion of this lump of sublimate, and crushed it up evenly, 
but not very finely, as it was still a rather coarse powder, and had 
mixed it up in the child’s medicine, without any suspicion that 
there was a possibility of detecting the source from which it had 
come. There were in each the same little particles of saneous 
discharge, the small particles of wool, and the rubbings-up of the 
pocket in which it had been carried, which rendered the origin of 
the poisoned powder perfectly unmistakable ; but of course no one 
could swear to the guilt of the person by such evidence, because 
all the farmers in the neighbourhood kept sheep also, and every 
one used mercury in the same way; and it would therefore be 
likely to be stained in the same way, and therefore it might have 
come from another place; but I think I should be very safe in 
saying that the poisonous substance was derived from the lump 
of mercury in the farmer’s drawer. At all events, the evidence 
that was given went to show the impossibility of the mistake 
having been made in the warehouse of the proprietor. It acquitted 
the manufacturer of any blame, of course; but you see what a 
dangerous position every manufacturer of medicines is in when 
he is liable to have his powders removed, poison substituted, and 
a charge like this laid at his door. A friend of mine had to pay 
something like £2500 last year, where he ought not to have paid 
anything. I mention this investigation simply to show how de- 
sirable it is, in a case of suspected carelessness on the part of a 
wdoctor, that the microscope should be employed, where possible, 
enti. 
