ARSENICAL DIPS LIABLE TO POISON 281 



the jury found a verdict for Mr. Black, with damages 

 amounting to 1400. Mr. Black's case rested mainly on the 

 fact that his sheep had been carefully dipped in the usual 

 manner, and according to the printed instructions sent with 

 each packet of the dipping mixture. It was sought to be 

 proved that the mixture might in some way have been 

 improperly made up, and was of such strength that the 

 poison had become absorbed through the skin. The poison- 

 ing of a donkey, which had carried the skins of the dead 

 sheep, some sores and gangrenous patches on the hands and 

 arms of several of the men employed in the dipping, were 

 also adduced as evidence of the undue strength of the 

 mixture. 



In defence of Mr. Elliot, it was shown on the other hand, 

 that thousands of sheep had without accident been dipped 

 in mixtures of the same strength as that sold to Mr. Black ; 

 that, indeed, on the same day as the Burton sheep were 

 dipped another gentleman in the neighbourhood, without 

 any bad effect whatever, used eight packages of the same 

 mixture made in the same way and at the same time. John 

 Gamgee and Stevenson Macadam made various experiments, 

 using, in two instances, arsenic in the proportion of 28 and 68 

 ounces for fifty sheep, instead of the 20 ounces present in Mr. 

 Elliot's dip. An Oxfordshire sheep-dipper, who annually 

 passed through his hands several thousand sheep without 

 losing one, for years employed 2J Ibs. of arsenic for fifty 

 sheep, or exactly double the strength of Elliot's mixture. In 

 1859, Dun made experiments with dips three and four times 

 the strength of Elliot's ; some of the sheep were immersed 

 for several minutes, and had these concentrated solutions 

 well rubbed into the skin. Dun abstained in several in- 

 stances from pressing or drying the wool, dipped the same 

 sheep twice within two hours, and several times within a 

 week, and yet failed hi destroying or injuring in the smallest 

 degree any one of the sheep subjected to these several trials. 

 These experiments were subsequently repeated and verified. 

 Arsenical sheep-dipping mixtures obviously are not ab- 

 sorbed through the sound skin. Their danger depends on 

 the poisonous fluid being retained by the fleece, from which 

 it drips on the grass or other food over which the animals 





