1 28 Reply to a Review in Brande's Journal of Science, 



such circumstances, I should not have been justified in passing a 

 ^et/^rer judgement upon the merits of that acid, than that which 

 my reviewer has quahfied by the expression, " not tempered with 

 mercy ;" and to which I omitted to advert in another part of 

 this reply, because I considered the present as a fitter opportu- 

 nity for so doing. 



The fact is, that both you and the reviewer — the one verbally, 

 in conversation with me— the other in writing, at page 404 of his 

 Review, have admitted the justice of my remark as to the ap- 

 pearances of the acid prepared at Apothecaries' Hall ; and it re- 

 mains only for me to say, in conclusion, that if my reviewer can 

 assert, as he has done at page 404, that " the occasional yellow- 

 ness and turbid appearance of that acid is rather an indication 

 of its purity than othenvise," his logic will certainly fail to con- 

 vince his readers, as it failed to convince myself. If, however, 

 by the admission tnat the acid is occasionally yellow and turbid, 

 and presents, moreover, a sediment, its decomposition is also ad- 

 mitted (which the reviewer has virtually done) ; then a preparation 

 liable to such fatal objections, ought not to have been defended as 

 a " verv uniform and very pure product ; " nor sold as pzire prus- 

 sic acid by the Apothecaries' Company, to supply " the occa- 

 sional demand" for that article, as they have unquestionably 

 done in the case of the two specimens in my possession, which 

 were nearly as objectionable in their appearance when first pro- 

 cured, as they are now, when " age" and " purity," says the re- 

 viewer, are to be considered as the two causes of those objection- 

 able appearances. For the information and caution of every me- 

 dical practitioner, I publicly exhibited, last night, at a meeting 

 of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, the two latter specimens, as 

 well as those alluded to in the course of this letter ; which have 

 been prepared agreeably to Scheele's and Vauquelin's methods — 

 and will show them to any other member of the profession, who 

 may be desirous of inspecting them*. 



As to the tone and style, generally, in which O's review is 

 written, I can only assent to the judgement passed upon them, 

 in a scientific circle, by one of the first philosophers in the coun- 



* The relative value of the aciti prepared by Mr. Garden, and at the Hall 

 according to Mr. Brande's fonniiia, will be further illustrated by the fol- 

 lowing facts. A pupil of St. Bartholomew's assured nic the otiier day, that 

 the Apothecaries' acid had been administered to patients in that hospital, 

 in doses of tw£nlj/-J'uur drops at a time, without the slit;htest obvious effect, 

 Mr. Travers mentioned to the Medico-Cliirurs^ical Society, a few nights 

 since, that one of the servants of St. Thomas's Hospital, having inadver- 

 tently svvalhnved a mixture containing about eighteen drops of prussic acid, 

 prepared by Mr. Garden, which he mistook for an aperient draught, fell 

 down on the floor as if shot by a cannon-ball! and continued ill for some 

 liavs. 



try J 



