EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 683 
We are contented to become their debtors for the profes- 
sion’s sake. 
In reference to the Cannabis Indicus, we have by us a 
small quantity, which is much at the service of our friends 
at home who may be desirous of giving to it a trial. All 
we ask in return is an account of the result. 
POISONING BY STRYCHNINE. 
We have inserted in the present and last numbers of our 
Journal, lengthened extracts from two important lectures on 
strychnine, by Dr. Macadam. We cannot but think that he 
has almost, if not completely, exhausted the subject of poi- 
soning with this agent, so varied and extensive have been his 
experiments, so clear and decided the results. We would 
that here the matter should end, for we cannot refrain from 
reiterating our condemnation of cruelly experimenting on 
the lower animals, and envy not the feelings of those who 
can have recourse to a repetition of them. We have seen so 
much of the torturing pangs produced by strychnine on dif- 
ferent animals, that we would not on any account again ad- 
minister that agent as a poison, or give it in such doses as to 
produce its full effects on the organism. Yet there may be, 
sometimes, valid reasons assigned why these experiments 
are instituted; and we think the late awful murders by 
means of this drug have in a degree sanctioned much that 
has been done, but not all. How many tyros in science have 
stepped forth, and heedlessly and needlessly experimented on 
some poor unoffending brute, with the vague hope of making 
a discovery by which he would obtain an ephemeral fame, or 
perhaps, in his own estimation, become immortalised ! On 
the Continent we know these things are done with impunity, 
and we have expressed our regret that it should be so. We 
also remember hearing the late Sir Astley Cooper say, that 
his friend Professor Coleman, when writing his work on ‘ Sus- 
pended Animation,’ had destroyed cats and dogs enough to 
choke up Fleet-ditch, which once ran by the side of the 
