246 
MISCELLANEA. 
bam, Master of the Mint, which occurred on the 17th of September. Mr. 
Graham, who was the son of a Glasgow merchant, was born on the 21st of De¬ 
cember, 1805. He received his early education in his native city, and after¬ 
wards took the degree of Master of Arts in Edinburgh. His early studies 
and labours in chemistry were conducted in Glasgow, where he lectured for 
several years at the Mechanics’ Institute and Andersonian Institution. In 
1837 he succeeded Dr. Edward Turner as Professor of Chemistry at University 
College, London, and he continued to hold this appointment until, in 1855, 
he became Master of the Mint on the retirement of Sir John F. W. Herschel, 
Bart. Professor Graham took an active part in establishing the Chemical 
Society in 1840, and the Cavendish Society in 1846, and of the latter society 
he was the President throughout its continuance. He has been engaged in 
most important Government inquiries involving a knowledge of Chemistry 
during the period of his holding office as a Professor in London, and several 
of the results of commissions of which he formed part have been published 
in this Journal. But Professor Graham’s scientific reputation, which stands 
very high, has been established by the important investigations he successfully 
carried out on several subjects, but especially on the diffusion of gases and 
liquids. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1836 ; and a cor¬ 
responding member of the Institute of France in 1848. In 1862 he was 
awarded the Copley medal of the Royal Society, for his speculations on the 
constitution of phosphates and other salts, for his discovery of the law of dif¬ 
fusion of liquids, and of the new method of separation known as dialysis. 
MISCELLANEA. 
Suicide by Oxalic Acid. —On Tuesday, September 7th, an inquest was held by 
Mr. Langham, deputy coroner, at Charing Cross Hospital, on the body of Catherine 
Dash, aged 36, who committed suicide by some irritant poison, supposed to be oxalic 
acid. In the absence of her husband, the deceased, according to her own statement, 
took some brandy, and afterwards oxalic acid. She was conveyed to the hospital, where 
she died in about twenty minutes after her admission. The jury was satisfied that the 
deceased had committed suicide, and returned a verdict accordingly. 
Explosive Mixtures. —A correspondent in the ‘ American Journal of Pharmacy ’ 
for September states that he suffered severe personal injury by the explosion of the in¬ 
gredients of a prescription, of which the following is a copy :— 
R Potassse Chloratis ^iss. 
Acidi Tannici 5iss. 
Olei Gaultheri® gtt.xx. 
Misce ; ft. pulvis 1. Sig.: put in a quart of water. 
The mixture appears to have been dispensed previously without ignition, but on this oc¬ 
casion a new Wedgwood mortar, with rough surface, w r as used, first powdering the 
chlorate of potash, adding the other ingredients, and continuing the trituration, when a 
violent explosion occurred. The editor, in commenting on the above, gives the follow¬ 
ing caution:—“ Any organic substance having a large equivalent of loosely combined 
elements, like sugar, tannin, several of the glucosides, and other neutral bodies, should 
always be mechanically united with chlorate of potash with great caution, and the 
chlorate should be powdered alone, and then mixed with the other ingredients, sepa¬ 
rately powdered , on paper.” 
To Remove the Acidity in the Commercial Spirits of Nitrous Ether.— 
Mr. Albert E. Ebert, in the ‘ Pharmacist ’ of August, states that the free acids generally 
present in spirit of nitrous ether, may be easily removed by the use of animal or veget¬ 
able charcoal in the following manner:—“ Add two ounces of purified animal charcoal 
to one pint of spirit of nitrous ether, let it stand eight or twelve hours, with occasional 
shaking, and then filter.” 
