THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
69 
Messrs. Atkinson and Powell Rave taken possession of their splendid new 
premises at Townsville. 
Mr. P. N. Taylor, a new arrival from the “ little village,” has commenced 
business at Charters Towers ; Mr. J. Evans has set up at Rosewood ; and a 
new business has been started at Marburg by Mr. L. W. Camb, lately of Sydney. 
The death is announced of Mrs. Costin, mother of Mr. W. J. Costin, the 
well-known chemist, of Brisbane. 
A woman named Ruth Robinson was brought up at the Roma Police- 
court on Monday, the 8th February, charged with the murder of her 
former husband, Robert Birkett, in December, 1883. Frances Martindale, a 
married sister of the prisoner, deposed that between the 15th and 25th December the 
prisoner administered doses of white precipitate and oxalic acid to Birkett in 
soup, and on the night of the 1st January gave him laudanum in a sleeping 
draught, which killed him. The witness acknowledged that she knew that the 
poisoning was going on, and did nothing to stop it. At the close of her evidence 
the police magistrate ordered her into the dock as an accessory. She was 
charged as such, and remanded. 
CHINESE TOOTHACHE POWDER. 
With reference to Chinese toothache powder, Mr. F. P. Smith writes to the 
'Pharmaceutical Journal that he has seen it prepared with the flowers of 
andromeda polifolia, Azalea species, but never with flowers of Hyoscyamus or 
Datura. Mr. Smith adds : — This mixture of powdered aconite root (two species, 
one from sechuen, as well as a commoner variety) and these flowers are very 
efficacious in relieving the pain of toothache, gum-boils, faceache, &c. Arum 
root, the seeds of a cannabis and those of a Datura (man-to-lo), are also much 
•used for the same purpose. The Chinese Machaon Uivato used these anaesthetic 
powders previous to operations, and also gave wine in which they had been 
previously steeped for a longer or shorter time. I have known many merchants 
trading in China who have obtained singular relief from these native nostrums. 
The Chinese have been giving ingluvin in dyspepsia, and crystallised urea as a 
diuretic, for ages. Their detection of the value of the tea leaf and of the silk 
making qualities of the mulberry leaf show that they have considerable powers of 
observation, especially when the properties under notice lead to good economic 
results 
SULPHOYINATES IN PHARMACY. 
Some years ago (writes the Pharmaceutical Record) sulphovinate of soda 
was strongly advocated as an elegant aperient, having similar properties to 
sulphate of soda, but milder and more regular in its action. Dr. Rabuteau, of 
Paris, first brought it into notice, and it was employed by a large number of 
French practitioners for some time. Nevertheless, the pharmacists found it 
both difficult and costly to prepare, and that, even when quite pure, it would 
not keep well. It was hygroscopic in damp air, and efflorescent in a dry 
atmosphere. But, more than this, in a variety of circumstances it passed into 
bisulphate of soda, and so became worthless as a therapeutic agent. In like 
manner, some fine crystals of sulphovinate of baryta, prepared three years ago, 
which were quite transparent and perfectly pure at the time of their production, 
have become opaque and insoluble, having passed into sulphate of baryta. It 
is, therefore, evident that the sulphovinates are a most unstable class of salts, 
and must be totally excluded from pharmaceutical preparations. 
