MISCELLANEA. 
243 
suming that I had not heard anything of the pills or the symptoms before death, I did 
not find sufficient strychnia to cause death. On the 19th of September I received a 
packet from Superintendent Caldow, a white crystallized substance, weighing 11 grains. 
It is strychnia. 
The Coroner directed the jury in his summing up that if the pills containing strych¬ 
nia were given by an unqualified man through ignorance, and death resulted, they (the 
jury) should return a verdict of manslaughter ; but if that medicine was administered 
with “ malice,” then it would be in the eye of the law murder. 
The jury retired at half-past five, and, after an absence of half an hour, returned the 
following verdict:—“We find that the deceased Emily Sophia Blake died from the 
effects of strychnia taken by her in three pills, given to her by William John Storer 
and we find a verdict of manslaughter against the said William John Storer.” 
MISCELLANEA. 
Case of Accidental Poisoning 1 by Arsenic in Glasgow.—We learn from 
the { Glasgow Morning Journal’ that the police authorities of the southern district of 
Glasgow have been inquiring into the particulars of a case of poisoning by arsenic. 
The following are the circumstances elicited :—Sergeant Inglis reported at the Sou¬ 
thern Police Station that a woman, forty-eight years of age, named Bridget Cummisky 
or Keechan, and daughter, Mary Keechan, a child of five years of age, had taken 
seriously ill within their house at 144, Main Street, Gorbals, and that Dr. Docherty, 
who was attending them, was of opinion that they were suffering from the effects of 
poison. It seems that about nine o’clock on Saturday night, her child being slightly 
unwell, Mrs. Keechan went to the shop of William Arbuckle, herbalist, 153, Main 
Street, Gorbals, and asked for a half-penny worth of cream of tartar, and a halfpenny¬ 
worth of magnesia, and received from him two small powders in separate parcels. 
When she went home, she mixed the powders in a coffee-cup full of buttermilk, and 
gave her daughter one or two mouthfuls of the mixture, more than which the 
child refused to take, because the taste of the stuff was nasty. Piather, however, than 
lose the milk, Mrs. Keechan drank the remainder of the contents of the cup herself to 
the very dregs. About ten or fifteen minutes afterwards, the child was seized with pains 
in the stomach, and vomited two or three times. Shortly afterwards the mother also 
was seized with violent spasms, and what she termed cramp in the legs, followed by 
vomiting, which continued for many hours, during which time she was very prostrate. 
At two o’clock Dr. Docherty was called in, and from the symptoms exhibited came to 
form the opinion mentioned above. He administered an emetic, and used the stomach- 
pump ; but, notwithstanding all the efforts used, the patients remained then, and re¬ 
main still, in a precarious condition. The little girl was in a bad state, hut Mrs. 
Keechan was much worse. Nothing would lie on her stomach; she was very weak, 
and continued to vomit a greenish matter streaked with blood, her features were 
pinched, her eyes sunken, her fingers clenched, and altogether she betokened great 
suffering, and was nearly pulseless. Dr. Docherty went to Mr. Arbuckle’s shop, and 
asked for the same quantity of cream of tartar and magnesia as Mrs. Keechan had 
purchased. He received two powders made up in separate papers, and these were sub¬ 
sequently tested in presence of himself and Dr. Dunlop by Mr. Kinninmont, chemist 
and druggist, South Portland Street, who found that in the parcel represented as con¬ 
taining magnesia, there was really no magnesia, but a substance, acid and burning to 
the taste, and metallic in its appearance, which turned out to be white arsenic of a 
coarse description. It is alleged that the woman Keechan must have taken a quantity 
of the powder equal to about a quarter of an ounce of arsenic. The medical men and 
an officer of police went to Arbuckle’s shop to take possession of the bottles from which 
he had served the powders purchased, and found them to contain two or three ounces 
more of arsenic. Mr. Arbuckle, we believe, says he has been selling the same stuff 
from the same bottles for four years, and that he must have, in the course of that time, 
sold about two pounds of it. 
Accidental Poisoning by Aconite.—On Wednesday, August 23rd, Mr. Ful- 
Jager, the coroner for East Sussex, held an adjourned inquest at the Town Hall, Hove, 
