314 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
A caution was administered to a chemist, John Harrison (Boot’s Drug Store, 
Lincolnshire), for selling so much as 7 grains of morphia to a man, who had 
died from the effects of same. 
An inquest was lately held at Chiswick, England, upon the body of a two- 
year-old child, who had died after sucking twelve to eighteen lucifer matches. 
A verdict of “ Accidental death from phosphorus poisoning” was returned. 
In the Supreme Court, Adelaide, on 6th August, Henry "Wheeler Weston 
Guest, chemist, of Moonta, was acquitted on the charge of feloniously assaulting 
Maude Polkinghorne, a girl under the age of sixteen years, at Moonta, on the 
13th May. 
Mrs. Brady, wife of the chemist at Petersburg, S.A., has been committed 
for trial on a charge of manslaughter, she having caused the death of a woman 
named Itabbick by a 1 ministering a dose of ammonia to recover the deceased 
from a fainting fit. 
A case of poisoning by Lobelia seed was lately investigated at Oldham. 
The deceased, Jas. Kelly, aged 32, had suffered from indigestion, and had 
applied to a Mr. Parkinson for half an ounce of Lobelia seed, the whole of 
which he had taken. The coroner suggested Lobelia should be scheduled, and 
the jury recommended that those who sell it should not sell more than one dose 
at a time. 
An elderly man who had heard ammonia recommended as a stimulant at a 
temperance meeting took a dessert-spoonful of that undiluted liquid. He was 
taken very ill, and a medical man found that the skin of his mouth had been 
entirely destroyed, and was hanging in patches, and the sufferer soon afterwards 
expired. At an inquest which followed, held at Paddington (England), a verdict 
of accidental death was returned. 
Jno. Reid Morrison, a medical practitioner, who also kept a shop, was 
lately fined 20s., with costs, for selling spirit of nitrous ether, not of the 
nature and quality of the article demanded, the drug being deficient in nitrous 
ether to the extent of 80 per cent. The prosecution was conducted by the 
sanitary inspector to the parish. The ether was admittedly pure, but had 
deteriorated in strength by decomposition and evaporation. 
The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain lately successfully prosecuted 
Air. Whiteley, of “ Universal Provider” fame, for selling cyanide of potassium 
in the photographic portion of his business without observing legal require- 
ments. The poison was openly sold, the sale not being registered, and the 
purchaser being unknown to the shopman. There was no practical defence, 
though it was suggested that the prosecution had been initiated through the 
jealousy of persons engaged in the wholesale photographic business. A fine of 
20s. was inflicted, with costs. 
An inquest was lately held at Hackney, London, concerning the death of a 
young woman who was alleged to have committed suicide. A tin which had 
contained Keating’s Insect Powder was found empty in the bedroom of the 
deceased, and a quantity of stuff resembling that preparation was found in the 
stomach. It was elicited, however, that the powder is not dangerous to human 
life, and the jury returned an open verdict. It is surmised that the intending 
suicide believed that she had poisoned herself, and that her imagination was so 
strong as to invest the preparation with the deadly qualities which she believed it to 
•possess. The British and Colonial Druggist has an editorial upon this interesting 
case, and relates a number of cases wherein the imagination had also had a chief 
part in causing death. 
