THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OE PHARMACY, 
109 
and contradicted herself on some points, though adhering to the main facts as 
regarded the poisoning. The police magistrate ordered the witness’ arrest as an 
accessory to the crime, and both prisoners were remanded for further inquiry. 
The balance-sheet and report of the Townsville Hospital shows the receipts 
for the year to have* been £1691 7s. 7d. A fear is expressed that the increase 
in patients is so disproportionate to the rate of revenue that the funds of the 
institution will be exhausted by about August or September. The cost of 
patients per diem is stated at 4s. 3|d., as against 4s lOJd for last year. 
A recent inspection of the Neardie Antimony Mining and Smelting Company’s 
property showed that the lodes already opened would give employment to a 
number of men for a lifetime, the limited demand for antimony being the 
company’s only trouble. 
At Ipswich last month an infant named Wyatt, aged seven months, was 
accidentally poisoned. The child had been in ill-health, and under medical 
treatment. About midnight the father arose to give the child some of the 
medicine which had been prescribed for it, but inadvertently administered a 
spoonful of liniment which had been used some time previously for the sore 
throat of another child. Dr. Lossberg was at once called in, but the case was 
hopeless, and the little sufferer expired in great agony at nine o’clock on the 
following morning. 
Apropos of the maize- blight which is complained of in several parts of the 
•colony, and which appears to be chiefly due to a fungus, Mr. A. Davidson, the 
practical teacher of the Board of Technical Education on the Clarence, recom- 
mends that, after the corn has been pulled, the stalks be instantly burned, and 
that the seed sown in the next season should be first steeped for a few minutes 
in a solution of bluestone water. 
It is stated that Mr. Colin Munroe, of Dryine plantation, Lower Burdekin, 
has made very successful experiments in j> re serving milk. By Mr. Munroe’s 
plan the milk is condensed by boiling in vacuum without sugar. It is said 
to preserve its ordinary appearance, and only requires to be reduced with water 
to the strength required when about to be used. It has nothing of the sickly 
flavour of the imported article, or milk preserved with sugar in the ordinary way, 
and retains all the freshness of new milk. Mr. Munroe has signified his intention 
of engaging largely in this industry. 
The Queensland Government Gazette of 13th February publishes a list of 
pharmaceutical chemists qualified on that date to practise in Queensland under 
the Pharmacy Act 1884. 
Dr. Johnstone has been dismissed from the Blackall Hospital. It is stated 
that a disagreement arose between the doctor and the chemist, the medico refusing 
to give the chemist any prescriptions. A female patient, being thus neglected, 
complained to the authorities, and the doctor then turned the woman out, although 
not nearly convalescent. 
M. E. Cocardas describes and figures in the Bulletin de la SociSte Botanime 
de' France the various forms of penicillium ferment grown on different pharma- 
ceutical extracts, and arrives at the conclusion that the ferment causes in the 
extract changes comparable to those effected by heat, viz., the absorption of 
oxygen and disengagement of carbonic acid, with formation of water, causing, 
in consequence, dilution of the extract. The exact chemical changes are, how- 
ever, complex, and vary with the special extract. The penicillium itself is sub- 
ject to a series of variations, but all are varieties in the evolution of a single form. 
— Bharmacentical J ov/rnal . 
