September 21,1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
239 
expressions which you have used I can only thank those 
who have utterred them and those who appear to have 
endorsed them. It seems to be your pleasure that I 
should continue another year in this office; I should 
have been glad to have been excused from the duty, not 
on account of any indisposition to serve the Conference, 
which I have loved from the beginning, but from tho 
feeling that you have so many amongst you who are 
so much better able to undertake the somewhat 
onerous duties which fall to the lot of yonr president. 
The proceedings then terminated. 
Erratum. —In the President’s remarks on Pill Coating 
at p. 213 in last week’s Journal, read Bullock and Cren¬ 
shaw for Burke and Trinshow. 
IpuliamcRtiirg anit fate fwmlmtp. 
A Fatal Mistake. 
An inquest was held on Thursday evening at the 
Cambridge Hotel, Woolwich, on the body of an 
infant named Mary Dixon, who was accidentally 
poisoned. 
Rose Dixon, widow of James Dixon, tailor, of 3, Mary 
Ann Cottages, Frances Street, said that deceased was 
her daughter and her age was seven weeks. She was 
bringing her up by hand, as she had to take a situation 
in service, but had not yet transferred her to the care of 
any one else. She only arrived from Ireland on Sunday 
week, and the journey made the child ill and feverish. 
She therefore sent for a James’s powder, as a cooling 
medicine, and the messenger returned saying that the 
druggist had none, but had given another little 
powder, which she was to give the baby. She ad¬ 
ministered it on Monday afternoon, and on the middle 
of the next day the child was very ill. Five minutes 
after she had given the powder she saw printed on the 
inside of the powder “ Stedman’s teething powder,” and 
Mrs. Styles went directly to the druggist, who advised 
her to give the child plenty of warm water to make it 
vomit, and also gave her a dose of medicine for it, 
and told her to keep it awake. She did so, although it 
was very drowsy, and next morning the child seemed 
better, but got worse during the day. She saw the 
druggist several times with the child, and paid him 2s. 6d. 
for a visit and his services to the child. When she found 
on Tuesday that the druggist was not a doctor, she taxed 
him with being not qualified, and he referred her to Dr. 
Hughes, who came on Wednesday. She did not tell 
him what the child had taken, thinking that the druggist 
had informed him, and the same night the child died. 
The druggist charged her nothing for the medicine he 
gave the child. 
Margaret Styles, the wife of an artilleryman living in 
the same house, said the last witness was acquainted with 
her in Ireland, and came to her at Woolwich. Witness 
had often been to the druggist, Mr. Shipman, in Frances 
Street, for her child, and on Monday went for a James’s 
powder for Mrs. Dixon and a Stedman’s powder for her 
own child. He said he had not a James’s powder, but 
gave her one which he said was of a cooling nature. 
Her own baby was nine months old, and she told the 
druggist its age. She had always used Stedman’s 
powder, because she had been told that it kept away 
little fits. He gave herthe powders in separate packages, 
and told her to be sure not to make any mistake by ex¬ 
changing them. They were both in the same coloured 
paper, and there was no label or writing outside either. 
After the baby had taken the one powder they saw 
u Stedman’s powder ” printed on the inside wrapper, the 
outside paper being white. 
Mr. Qeo. Virgo Shipman, chemist and druggist, of 
2, Frances Street, said he was registered by the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society. He served the last witness with the 
two powders, pointing out the printed label on the Sted¬ 
man’s powder and cautioning her to be most careful not 
to make a mistake. The baby’s powder was not labelled 
at all, and both were in outer wrappers of white paper, 
but he had told the woman expressly that the one with 
the printed label on was for the elder child. 
The Coroner said it would have been better to label 
both the powders. And there was another serious ques¬ 
tion affecting Mr. Shipman. How came he, being a 
non-qualified practitioner, to attend the child and treat 
the case. 
Mr. Shipman said he went in a friendly way. 
The Coroner said the law was now very stringent on 
the subject. A druggist might give advice as a friend, 
but he must not undertake the management of a case. 
Mr. Shipman said in that case if he saw a fellow- 
creature bleeding to death, he supposed he must not stop 
the bleeding. 
The Coroner : Every case must be judged by itself, 
and in that case it would be inhuman to refuse any help 
in your power; but here you have been attending upon 
a patient for two days like a qualified doctor, treating 
the case yourself and charging a fee; and not until the 
child was dying did you recommend any other assist¬ 
ance. 
Dr. Hughes said he attended the child on Wednesday 
afternoon between two and three o’clock, -under an order 
from the parish. Nothing was said about the urgency 
of the case either when he was sent for or when he got 
to the house. He saw that the child was dying from 
severe narcosis—as he supposed from opium; but the 
women said it was only diarrhoea. He was not told 
anything about the mistake which had occurred, and 
asked where they got their medicine. They told him 
Mr. Shipman’s, and he went there, where he learned 
for the first time what had happened. The case was 
hopeless, and the child died the same night. He 
had since made a post-mortem examination, and 
found the child very badly nourished—in fact, he might 
say starved. It had been brought up on a feeding-bottle 
—the greatest curse for babies that ever existed. (“ Hear, 
hear,” from the jury). He did not think the child would 
have survived the dose even if it received the best atten¬ 
tion, for its life was on the flicker, and the least thing 
was enough to put it out. Stedman’s teething powders 
were composed of calomel, opium, sugar and starch. No 
child under a year old ought to take opium, except under 
very extraordinary circumstances. Stedman’s teething 
powders were altogether a different thing from Steed- 
man’s soothing powders, which were an old-established 
and harmless medicine. 
Mr. W. F. Smith, of 280, Walworth Road, said he 
appeared for the proprietor of Steedman’s Soothing- 
Powders, a tried preparation of fifty years’ standing, 
prepared by Mr. Steedman, of Walworth. The powder 
given to the child was not one of these, but a different 
preparation called Stedman’s Teething Powder—the two 
being entirely different. 
Mrs. Styles, re-called, said she asked for Stedman’s 
Teething Powder, and got it. 
The Coroner pointed out that the Stedman’s Teething 
Powder administered to deceased was only printed on 
one side, and Mrs. Styles might have opened it from the 
plain side without turning it over. The child having 
been brought up by hand, was very weakly, and very 
little would kill it, especially after a sea voyage. He 
believed that Mr. Shipman duly cautioned Mrs. Stjdes; 
but he thought he did wrong in charging 2s. 6d. for 
attending the child, the Act being strict in that respect. 
He also thought it would have been better to have got 
a doctor the moment the mistake was discovered. It 
would also have been better to have put one powder in 
blue paper and the other in white. 
The jury considered the administration to have been 
accidental, and returned a verdict to that effect. 
