36 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[July 13, 1872. 
out all the sulphuretted hydrogen ? which latter element 
is needed to convert the contents of the purifiers into 
sulphide of calcium. And the essence of the difficulty 
consists in the fact that carbonic acid exists in the gas 
in very much larger proportion than sulphuretted hy¬ 
drogen does; while there is no chemical substance which 
absorbs carbonic acid without also absorbing sulphuretted 
hydrogen. 
Suicide by Cyaxide of Potassium.—The Sale of 
Poisoxs. 
On Wednesday, July 3rd, Mr. W. H. G-arrington, the 
borough coroner, held an inquest at Portsea relative to 
the death of Charles West, sapper in the 32nd company 
of Royal Engineers. 
Thomas Lawrence, a sapper, said he was at work in 
the tailor’s shop, at Anglesea Barracks. At about six 
o’clock on Tuesday morning, West entered the room and 
asked him for a penny, saying he had got one penny and 
wanted another. Witness told him he had not got a 
penny to give him, upon which he went over to the 
shelf running across the room and took up one of the 
bottles there, asking, at the same time, whether there 
was cyanide in it. On being told that it contained 
cyanide of potassium, West put the bottle to his mouth 
and commenced to drink. Witness got off his board 
immediately and took the bottle away from him, but not 
before he. had taken a good mouthful of the cyanide, 
about half a wine glassful. West then ran downstairs 
to the pump in the backyard, from which he pumped 
some water into a basin and drank it, but he almost im¬ 
mediately fell down. West struggled very much whilst 
on the ground, and froth came from his mouth. He 
became insensible when ho fell, and his face became 
'ery yellow, whilst his lips became black. He was 
taken into a room and attended to by a surgeon, who 
directed his removal to the garrison hospital. It was 
customary to keep cyanide of potassium in the room ; 
it was used for cleaning gold lace The bottle from 
which deceased drank belonged to witness, and was used 
by him in cleaning the gold lace on the non-commissioned 
officers’ uniforms. On the 7th of June he sent for Gel. 
worth of cyanide of potassium, which he mixed in half a 
pint of waiter and placed in the bottle produced. There 
vaas no label on the bottle to indicate its contents. He 
often obtained cyanide of potassium at druggists’ shops 
at o Jier places vdiere he had been stationed, and had 
nevey experienced any difficulty in getting it, on sign¬ 
ing his name in the druggists’ books. 
A juror said he was in the habit of using cyanide of 
potassium, and he had always great difficulty in obtain¬ 
ing it from chemists in Portsea. It was almost a slur 
on the chemists of the town, but he knew they w T ere verv 
particular. J 
The Coroner said the witness referred to other places 
cis he had not yet bought any in Portsea. 
^ r ' Dafrick Walter Stafford, assistant surgeon on the 
Stafr of the 1 ortsmouth Garrison, said that when he 
first saw West, he was in a dying state, in fact he died 
two minutes afterwards. Witness had made a post- 
morfm examination of the body, and found the stomach 
halt filled with semi-coagulated fluid, which had a strono- 
penetrating odour of prussic acid. He had analysed the 
contents of the tw r o bottles produced, and found them to 
be a solution of cyanide of potassium of considerable 
strength. 
Some evidence was given tending to show' that th 
mmd of the deceased was affected. 
Thomas Kent, sapper, said he recollected befru 
by the first witness (Lawrence) on the 7th of June to 
ing gold lace and chains. He was not asked his name, 
and saw no entry made in the book of sales of poisons ; 
he signed no book. He was supplied with the article- 
lie asked for without further demur, except that he was 
cautioned that it was a rank poison. 
The Coroner said the law r w r as that a person to whom 
a sale of poison w r as made should enter his name in a 
book, and, he believed, the purpose for which he required 
it. 
A juror said he was in the habit of obtaining it, and 
he had to sign his name in a book and to say the pur¬ 
pose he wanted it for, and he knew r of an instance in 
w r hich a person could not obtain the poison until he took 
some friend with him. 
The witness said there was a label marked “ Poison '* 
on the packet given him. 
The Coroner, in summing up, said the only point for the 
jury to consider was the state of the mind of the deceased 
when he took the poison, as the evidence was so clear 
and conclusive of his having taken it, and there was no¬ 
question that was the cause of death. They had the 
evidence of the last witness that he purchased the poison 
at the shop of Mr. Woollons. It was in very constant 
use, and no doubt druggists were frequently called on 
for it, wfiiich rendered it the more incumbent on them to 
surround the sale of it with all the precautions the law 
demanded. In the Sale of Poisons Act there were cer¬ 
tain provisions that wffien any poison was sold the sale 
should be entered in a book, and Mr. Woollons, or who¬ 
ever sold the poison, had clearly committed a breach of 
the law r in that respect. If any one asking for the poison 
was not known to the person to whom he w r ent, he must 
take some one with him to prove he was the person ho 
pretended to be, and also to satisfy the vendor he required 
it for a legitimate and proper purpose. Chemists w T ere 
required to keep a book in which to enter the dates, tho 
names of the article and the quantity, the purpose as¬ 
signed for its purchase, and then the signature and 
residence of the person buying it. That was, so far as- 
he recollected, what was required, but all druggists were 
bound to enter any sale of poison. Mr. Woollons w r as 
not there to make an explanation, and it would be un¬ 
fair and unjust for him to make any further comments 
on this point. The Coroner next referred to the fact of 
the poison having been kept in the tailor’s shop, as it 
wais—the bottle being carelessly placed on the shelf, 
without any mark on it to denote it w 7 as poison. He 
pointed out how easy it was for any one to abstract it, 
and also the danger likely to occur by a person half 
drunk, and therefore with a natural craving for drink, 
mistaking it fofi gin or something else, and taking up the 
bottle and drinking from it. Accidents of that sort had 
occurred. He hoped that Lawrence would have this 
concoction, or anything else wffiich was deleterious or 
poisonous, wffiich he wms obliged to use in his business, 
labelled and kept in a place of security. 
The jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict 
that deceased died through taking the poison, but that 
there was no evidence to show the state of his mind at 
the time. The foreman stated that the jury endorsed 
the opinion of the Coroner, both in regard to the sale of 
the poTon and also a3 to the easiness of access to it in 
the workshop .—Portsmouth Times. 
Suicide of a Chemist by Pbussic Acid. 
An inquiry into the circumstances attending the 
e death of Mr. Frederick Stockman, aged II years, w r ho 
committed suicide by poisoning himself, was held at Gos- 
sent j port on Saturday last, by Edward Hoskins, Esq., county 
coroner. The widow' of the deceased deposed that the 
c }‘}nide of potassium. He went to the shop deceased was formerly a chemist and druggist, livin 
FnrKn^nr, 0 ! 110 , 11 ?- c , t ® misfc . and ^uggist, in Queen-street, Forton Road, and on Thursday she’ last°saw him’alive, 
in nnifnnn ' ri-n. vC * or S1X pennyworth. Witness, was He had been suffering from mental depression for some 
l-nowwiviri .. 10 l )er , S( l n m the. shop asked him if he time. At dinner time witness sent one of the children 
a i w as used for, and wutness replied for clean- into the shop to ask him to come to dinner, but he told 
