308 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
Mr. Thomas, late of Sydney, is now at the Croydon goldfield, North 
Queensland ; and I hear that Mr. Wragge, of Boulia, is destined for the same 
place. If the field does not turn out well, our enterprising friends are likely 
to fare badly, as it takes a lot of money to get there. 
Mr. Miller, of Goondiwindi, is at present in Brisbane and unable to proceed' 
home owing to heavy floods. The district around the town is quite inundated. 
Dr. Bedmond, of Geraldtown, is about leaving for fresh fields and pastures 
new. 
Some time ago a company opened a patent medicine shop in Queen-street, but 
did not survive long. I notice another shop has been opened in South Brisbane, 
but, after the miserable collapse of the first, I cannot help thinking the present 
one will be a failure. 
Business in Queensland is not as brisk this year as last. No doubt the 
lengthened drought has a lot to do with this. Some chemists inland, at places 
like Boulia, V/inton, etc., have been unable to obtain supplies, as the carriers 
cannot travel. This, and the number of people leaving the districts, tends to 
make things slack. However, as nearly the whole of the colony has been 
visited with rain, I look now for brighter prospects. 
At Oamaru, on 7th July, a man named Leitch visited Messrs. Dodds and Co.’s 
shop, and, complaining of diarrhoea, purchased a bottle of chlorodyne, which, he 
being identified by a neighbour, and duly signing the poison book, was supplied, duly 
labelled poison, and with directions for use. Shortly afterwards he took the poison, 
at a neighbouring hotel, and Drs. Fleming and De Latour, who were called in, were 
unable to save him. At the inquest the jury found that the deceased poisoned 
himself while in a state of temporary insanity, and the coroner added that Mr. 
Dodds had observed every possible precaution in the matter. 
At Motueka, New Zealand, recently, a lady, while passing near some 
beehives, was stung on the face just below the eye by a bee. The sting was 
extracted, but twenty minutes after she was stung the lady was dead. 
In Parliament, on 1st July, Sir George Grey asked the Government whether 
any steps could be taken under the Poisons Act to prosecute the person who sold 
wax vestas, or matches, by which the female child of W. P. Mackay (of Invercargill) 
was recently poisoned, the case containing matches not having been marked 
“ Poison” as required by the Act. The Hon. Mr. Tole said he had looked into this 
matter and found no prosecution would lie under the Act. 
It is announced that Mr. Owen, of Messrs. Aickin and Owen, Napier, has 
retired from the business, which will be carried on in future under the style of 
Aickin and Co. Mr. W. Powell, of Mount Eden-road, Auckland, has removed to 
new premises in Hobson-street. 
A new disinfectant and germicide has been discovered by a Spanish 
professor ( Lancet , 10th April, p. 709.) in benoxide of nitrogen. It had been 
observed that none of the workmen in an electrotyping establishment in Madrid 
died from cholera during the epidemics of 1834, 1859, and 1865, only those 
frequently absent from the factory being attacked at all. Further investigations 
demonstrated the fact that liquids from dead bodies on being treated with 
benoxide of nitrogen soon lost their peculiar smell, and remained free from 
micro-organisms. In thirty-five cases of cholera it is said to have been used 
successfully by a French naval surgeon . — . Pharmaceutical Journal . 
