256 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
been intended that that medicine should have been taken a few times only; but 
it was found that the prescription had been dispensed nine months after date. 
Something should be done to prevent chemists dispensing prescriptions of certain 
classes more than once. Possibly this result might be effected by an endorsement 
made upon prescriptions.” 
Mr. W. J. Cullen, for some time past chief clerk in the goods shed at the 
Albury railway station, died on 9th inst. from the effects of an overdose of 
morphia. A coronial enquiry resulted in the return of a verdict of accidental death* 
Mr. Samuel Hy. Hughes, son of the late Mr. S. Emery Hughes, has passed 
his first examination at the Boyal College of Surgeons, and is also reported to 
have won a “ dressership.” Mr. Hughes is an Australian, and has thus distin- 
guished himself at the comparatively early age of 22 years. 
Mr. Berndt unbosoms himself in a letter to a Sydney paper : — “ Having occasion 
to obtain some natron bicarbonicum on Sunday night last, I was informed by no 
less than four of our leading chemists in Greorge-street — first, that it was never 
used in dispensing, and there was no call for it ; second, that it was not in the 
British Pharmacopoeia ; third, that he had never heard of it; fourth, did not keep 
it in stock. At last, on going into another shop, I discovered at once that this 
mysterious compound was nothing but the common or garden bicarbonate of soda, 
which I have a faint idea is very largely used of all these intelligent dispensers, 
who were, however, unacquainted with it under its scientific name. How, sir, I 
maintain that, when four of the would-be leading chemists in the leading city of 
Australia are so ignorant of the Latin name of one of the commonest things in 
their shop, there must be something essentially rotten in the state of Denmark.” 
An inquest on the body of a young girl named Emily Matthews, who died 
from the effects of a dose of carbolic acid, was recently held at Marrickville. 
The deceased was 21 years of age, and had been in tbe domestic service of Mr. 
W. O. Skarratt, of the township named. The deceased had left two letters 
bidding farewell to her friends, and asking them not to grieve for her, but no 
evidence was adduced in explanation of the supposed suicide. The jury found 
that death had resulted from carbolic acid, and that the same had been self- 
administered. 
The president of the Hew South Wales branch of the British Medical 
Association thus referred to cocaine in his inaugural address : — “ Cocaine is a 
yellowish white crystalline bitter alkaloid, obtained from the leaves of the 
JErythroxylon coca , a shrub growing on the mountains of Bolivia and Peru. 
The leaves have been used for some time by the native Indians and others to 
appease hunger and) thirst ; from 2 to 8 drachms being chewed with wood ashes 
or lime, this quantity sufficing for a day. Travellers are supposed to have 
ascended mountains with little or no fatigue whilst under its influence. 
Athletes experience a feeling of invigoration, wholly, or in a great part, resisting 
fatigue. But it is not so much for its internal use that it is so highly prized 
as for its ’ a local anaesthetic effect. Small but painful operations, which, at one 
time, could not be performed without subjecting the patient to the risk of 
chloroform, are now done with extra facility. In operations on the eye its 
value is especially great, the patient being able to assist by moving his eveball 
in any direction required by the operator. In operations on the throat, in 
dentistry, and in other ways, this new drug is found to be most useful.” 
An inquest was held at the Sydney Morgue on 28th ult. touching the 
death of Jno. Hy. Anthony Fitzgerald, whose body was found in a right-of-way 
off Little Oxford-street on the previous Saturday. The deceased was 32 years of 
age, and had been a medical man, practicing at Allandale, Victoria. It 
appeared that he had been of intemperate habits, and the medical evidence 
