598 
ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
attributed his death to a fresh accession of paralysis. The learned Judge suggested that 
morphia should not be left, in the way it had been in the ward, without some palpable 
or other indication that it was poison. Under the circumstances, he thought it would 
be hardly safe to convict this comparatively ignorant man, unless, indeed, the jury 
thought he conducted himself in a culpable way. The jury, after a brief deliberation, 
returned a verdict of Not Guilty. 
DEATH FROM THE USE OF IMPROPER MEDICINES. 
An inquest has been held at Lever Street, St. Luke’s, on Susannah Irwin, aged 38. 
It appeared that she sent for Mr. Denase, a Frenchman, who practised as a herbalist 
and botanist, who sent her two bottles of mixture and twenty-six pills, with the direc¬ 
tion “to take a glassful of the contents of one bottle every half-hour, and of the other 
every hour, the pills to be taken at frequent intervals during the night.” This was on 
Sunday evening, and by six o’clock on Tuesday rrforning she had taken the whole of 
the medicines, but finding herself worse, she sent for Mr. Garrard, surgeon. A post¬ 
mortem examination was made by Mr. F. A. Grant, who found no natural cause for 
death. The medicine and the treatment of Mr. Denase had caused the miscarriage, the 
exhaustion from which was the cause of death. The following is the herbalist’s de¬ 
scription of his medicines and treatment of the case:—“I prescribed half an ounce of 
yarrow, half an ounce of centaury, the same quantity respectively of agrimony, St. 
John’s wort, and ginger root, and a quarter of a spoonful of powdered cloves, all infused 
in water. I ordered a wineglassful to be taken every half-hour. I ordered her pills at 
the same time. They consisted of twenty grains of cayenne pepper, and twenty grains of 
lobelia powder, mixed with honey. I could have taken the whole dose myself. I also 
ordered her a mustard poultice, a hot bath, vinegar clothes, and hot-water bottles to her 
feet and plenty of blankets. I do not understand accouehements, but I never asked 
whether she was enceinte , and I would have treated her in just the same way whether 
or no.” The jury returned the following verdict:—“ That the deceased died from ex¬ 
haustion resulting from a miscarriage, which had been brought on by medicine taken 
inadvertently that had been ignorantly prescribed for her by an unqualified practitioner ; 
and the jury desire to express their regret that ignorant and unqualified practitioners 
are allowed to prescribe for patients to the danger of life.” 
ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
We learn from the‘Liverpool Mercury’ that four children who had picked up a 
number of beans or nuts from a heap of rubbish in one of the streets were taken 
seriously ill, and on being taken to the Children’s Infirmary, were found to be suffering 
from poison ; they recovered the following day. The rubbish from which the beaus 
w'ere taken was opposite the warehouse of Mr. John Baxter, and adjoining the new 
premises of Messrs. Evans, wholesale druggists. Messrs. Evans, when applied to by the 
inspector, stated that they had no beans of the description found, nor could they ascertain 
where all the rubbish came from, though it was afterwards removed by some unknown 
person. This is the third accident of the kind that has occurred in Liverpool. In the 
former cases the poison proved to be the Calabar bean. 
In the present instance the nuts in question were, according to the statement of Mr. 
I. H. Betts in the ‘ Liverpool Mercury ’ of May 23, taken from the sweepings of a 
cotton warehouse, and are the seeds of the Jatropha ?urcas , Linn., a plant belonging to 
the same Natural Order (. Euphorbiacece) as the croton-oil plant ( Croton tiglium), and re¬ 
sembling it greatly in its purgative and irritant properties. 
On Wednesday, for the first time in England, a number of medical students dined 
with royalty. On that day the Prince of Wales, as President of St. Bartholomew’s 
Hospital, took the chair at the “ annual view dinner,” in the great hall of the hospital. 
This was the first occasion of his doing so, and among the guests invited to meet his 
Royal Highness were the young prizemen of the past and present year. In honour of 
this first occasion, and in expectation that some of the names of the students who were 
