18 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
on a 'post-mortem examination being made, but its source was also traced, and, 
in every case the mixture as stated, satisfactorily proved. As to the other 
theory, the mixture of seeds, granting that the same process which extracts the 
santonine from the santonica would also extract the strychnine from the strych- 
nos, it is hardly conceivable that the adulteration would escape the notice of 
the different manufacturers ; far less would it be possible, even if it did, to 
produce a simple mixture of crystals, such as appears to have been charac- 
teristic of these fatalities. In the process of crystallisation, the two substances 
would not have crystallised separately to form a mixture, but would have 
blended together to form a distinct and uniform crystal. The more probable 
explanation is, that a distant resemblance both in the spelling and pronouncing 
of the two names, favoured by a similarity in their physical appearance, has led 
to some confusion at one point or another, whereby the one has been accepted 
for the other. Still, even with this explanation, it remains a curious fact that 
the error has so frequently repeated itself both in this and other countries. 
Mistakes of any kind with poisons will almost always lead to results more 
or less serious, as well as mysterious, if not detected in time. The dismay, for 
example, that was caused five or six years ago by numerous fatalities from the 
use of a dusting powder largely adulterated with arsenic must still be fresh in 
the memory of everyone. Fifteen children died from arsenical poisoning 
produced by the use of this powder, and while, fortunately, its supply was 
distinctly and quickly traced to its source, and its use confined to a compara- 
tively limited area, the mystery, we believe, has never been explained as to 
how the arsenic was substituted for terra alba, which it was sold as, and supposed 
to be, or how it came to be supplied in such large quantity without detection 
in some manner or other. 
Equally serious and still more mysterious was a case that happened in a 
madhouse in the Southern States of America with aconitine, shortly after this 
powerful agent had been brought prominently into note in connection with the 
trial of Lamson. The medicines — in this instance all simple, it appears — were 
given to the patients of the asylum in open dishes carried on trays ; and 
whilst the trays were waiting for the nurses to take them to their different 
wards, it is thought someone must have tampered with them. Within a few 
miDutes after the medicines had been taken the patients complained of the 
effects ; and within ten minutes several had died, whilst other two died after 
two hours, and another still after two days. Post-mortem examinations 
discovered the presence of aconitine in considerable quantity, and some of it in 
the crystalline form. The fatal results could not be attributed to any of the 
ordinary preparations of aconite ; while, to add to the mystery, aconitine was 
unknown in the laboratory of the asylum, neither was it kept in stock by 
any chemist in the town. Anything more fiendish than this, if done inten- 
tionally, can scarcely be conceived. It opens up, however, a question which 
has often forced itself upon the writer as a probable solution of some unex- 
plained and apparently unexplainable crimes. Has the secret possession of or 
the power of obtaining such powerful agents as those we have been speaking 
of not a tendency to act on certain morbid minds, instigating to the 
perpetration of crime? Everyone has read of the impulse which seizes some 
individuals on looking over any huge precipice to cast themselves headlong 
from it. The impulse is described in some instances as being awful in its 
intensity. Is it not possible that certain individuals may thus also be acted 
upon to commit some fearful crime, when possessed of the means to do so ? 
Eead in this light, some historical crimes become intelligible, at least, in so far 
as supplying the link that is so often awanting as to their pause — namely, 
motive . — Chambers Journal. 
