COUNTER PRACTICE. 
131 
The plaintiff himself was called as witness ; he appeared in a very enfeebled state, and 
could hardly be heard. He stated that he went to consult the defendant, who said he 
would give him some medicine which would soon make him well; he sent his wife for 
the medicine, and he took all the pills excepting those he gave to his attorney. 
A chemical analyst, who had received from the plaintiff’s attorney two boxes of the 
pills, one containing ten, and the other six pills, which had been submitted to his ana¬ 
lysis along with a bottle of medicine, was then examined. The pills, he said, were 
“ blue pills,” and averaged four grains each. The medicine in the bottle was a simple mag¬ 
nesian mixture, with a little ether and some saline element. The pills in one box were 
marked, “ One to be taken every night,” and those in the other “ Occasionally at night.” 
Mr. Trend was called as witness for the plaintiff, and stated that on the 31st of May, 
he was called in to attend the plaintiff, and found him “ suffering from profuse saliva¬ 
tion, the result of mercury. His tongue was swelled, and partly protruded. The whole 
of the salivary glands were enlarged and painful, and he complained of severe pains in 
his limbs.” These were symptoms of mercury, which was not, under any circumstances, 
proper for the “ painters’ colic.” The proper treatment would be a full dose of opium, 
followed by a dose of castor oil, and then a saline mixture, with common Epsom salts. 
The plaintiff caught a cold, and bronchitis ensued. The mercury would make him more 
liable to cold, and render the case more difficult, and he thought the mercury had a good 
deal to do with the bronchitis. 
This witness was cross-examined a good deal, with a view to show the existence of a 
hostile feeling towards the defendant. 
Dr. Guy, Professor of Forensic Medicine in King’s College, and physician to the hos¬ 
pital, was called for the plaintiff, and stated that the proper treatment for painters’ colic 
was, in a slight case, castor oil; if that was not sufficient, opium and then castor oil, 
the patient being meanwhile kept carefully in bed and warm. In his judgment, mer¬ 
cury remaining in the system to the extent of salivation could never in such cases be 
proper treatment. 
Dr. Harley, Professor of Forensic Medicine at University College, gave similar evidence. 
Painters’ colic, he said, was a very simple disease, and easily treated. The treatment 
was sedative and purgative. Opium to relieve the pain ; some mild purgative to open 
the bowels. Mercury to the extent of salivation was never given. 
This was the plaintiff’s case. 
Mr. M. Chambers, in addressing the jury for the defendant, said there was a strong 
professional prejudice against chemists selling medicines, and he thought that one of the 
medical witnesses was affected by that prejudice, though he admitted that the other 
eminent medical men who had been examined were entitled to every respect. Contrast¬ 
ing, however, the opinions of the new school with the old, he said it was a case of doctors 
differing, and it was hard to hold a chemist liable for a course which was sanctioned by 
those of any school. His client, however, would deny that he ever gave as much as a 
grain of mercury in any of the pills ; and it had not been proved that the pills analysed 
were his pills. 
The defendant was then called, who flatly contradicted the evidence of the plaintiff 
and his wife, and stated that on each occasion that he was consulted by the plaintiff, he, 
witness, recommended him to have medical advice : that he never gave him blue pill, 
but merely compound rhubarb pill and a simple mixture ; that the pill-boxes were cer¬ 
tainly his, but if they contained blue pills, these must have been substituted for those he 
gave to the plaintiff. 
Dr. Forshaw, a consulting surgeon, stated that painters’ colic was a very serious com¬ 
plaint and shortened life (whereas the eminent medical men who were called for the 
prosecution, stated on the contrary, that it was easily treated, and they had not known 
any case fatal, if properly treated); he saw nothing improper in the treatment the defen¬ 
dant said he had adopted, though it was not that which he should himself have adopted. 
Dr. Helsham, Kegistrar of the Medical Council, said, having heard the evidence of the 
last witness, he agreed with him as to the treatment described as adopted. 
Mr. Serjeant Ballantine stigmatized the plea put forth for the defence, that there had 
been a fraudulent substitution of the pills, as monstrous in the extreme. 
The learned Baron then summed up the case to the jury. He should, he said, leave 
to the jury two main questions: first, whether the defendant did undertake to treat the 
plaintiff for his disorder: secondly, whether he treated the plaintiff so carelessly or igno- 
