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decide whether, how far, and with what the drug had been adulterated. 
Vegetable drugs were especially liable to adulteration, and it was the 
duty of the practitioner to ascertain the purity of those he used; 
otherwise, in expecting a certain action from a certain drug, he might 
disappoint both himself and his patient. In evidence of the vast im- 
portance of the subject of adulteration of drugs, Dr. Lindsay referred 
to the excellent papers published by the Sanitary Commission of the 
‘Lancet.’ Dr. Lindsay was of opinion that there ought to be a legis- 
lative enactment rendering druggists responsible for the quality of all 
medicines supplied by them, compelling them to test, and thus to 
ascertain the purity of every drug they sold. 
The next illustration detailed by Dr. Lindsay was a case of sus- 
pected poisoning. During life no symptoms of poisoning appeared, 
and it was obviously of great importance to determine precisely the 
nature of the pultaceous contents of the stomach. These had a strong 
ratafia odour, and consisted of a thick, whitish, pasty matter, inter- 
mixed with the rind and pulp of some succulent fruit. Under the 
microscope, Dr. Lindsay detected, inter alia, abundance of the starch 
cells of wheat flour, and the sclerogenous cells and portions of the 
epidermis and parenchyma of the pear. Hence he reported the appa- 
rent contents of the stomach to be pudding of the nature of blanc 
mange, made of flour, milk, gelatine of some kind, and spices, and a 
large quantity of pears mostly roasted, and that in his opinion death 
resulted from the effects of a surfeit of food of a most unusual kind, 
flavoured with a large excess of some essential oil, containing as its 
active ingredient hydrocyanic acid. The chemical evidence after- 
wards proved the case to be one of poisoning by “ quintessence of 
ratafia,” a substance used to flavour puddings. In giving in his re- 
port of this case, the police authorities informed Dr. Lindsay that it 
was the first occasion on which they had authorised or received the 
report of a microscopic examination in a case of suspected poisoning, 
so that the importance of Histology in medico-legal cases is only 
beginning to be recognised by courts of law. 
Dr. Lindsay then alluded to various observations made by him on 
the Histology of cholera, while resident physician of a cholera hos- 
pital. He mentioned that, by examining the matters vomited, the 
practitioner was often enabled to tell the exact nature of the patient’s 
food, which was of especial importance in cases where he was unable 
to detail the history of the seizure, or where he or his friends were 
found to prevaricate or deny, as in the case of a patient using an in- 
terdicted article of diet. Moreover, many entophytes might be dis- 
