356 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[November , 1872» 
There was no evidence that poison was present in the 
beer given to deceased by the prisoner, or to connect her 
in any way with the arsenic found in the stomach of 
deceased. The sayings attributed to the prisoner, he 
said, might be unintentionally coloured by the witnesses. 
The Judge in summing up pointed out that, according 
to the evidence, there was undoubtedly more than suffi¬ 
cient arsenic found in the stomach of deceased to account 
for death, but he considered the prosecution had utterly 
failed to show how it came there, or that the prisoner 
had anything to do with it. The case was surrounded 
by very suspicious circumstances; but unless the jury 
were satisfied that death resulted from poison, and that 
the prisoner administered that poison, they must give 
her the benefit of the doubt and acquit her. 
The jury, after a few minutes’ consultation, returned a 
verdict of “Not Guilty.” 
Double Suicide, by Strychnine.* 
On Monday, October 28th, Mr. Bedford resumed the 
inquiry respecting the deaths of two unknown persons 
in Soho. Dr. Slight said he had made an analysis and 
found a very large quantity of strychnia in both 
stomachs. He had not the slightest doubt as to the 
cause of death. The police reported that they had been 
unsuccessful in their attempt to discover the names of 
the deceased. A verdict was returned that the deceased 
came by their deaths from strychnia, but how or under 
what circumstances it came into their stomachs there 
was not sufficient evidence to show. 
Since the inquest a paragraph has appeared in the 
‘Times’ stating that the deceased had been identified 
by several persons as Captain and Mrs. Douglas, of 
Richmond. 
A Treatise on the Origin, Nature and Varieties 
of Wine : Being a Complete Manual of Viti¬ 
culture and CEnology. By J. L. W. ThuDichum, 
M.D., and Auguste Dupre, Ph.D. London • Macmil¬ 
lan. 1872. 
The consultation of two hundred works upon a cer¬ 
tain subject by an intending author would not always 
qualify him or leave him in a fit condition to write 
another on the same topic. But when it is stated that 
four hundred others were left unconsulted, strong grounds 
exist for doubting the likelihood of anything very 
original being said; at any rate it would be fresh proof 
of the wisdom of Solomon when he said that “ of making 
of books there is no end.” And vet, it must be acknow¬ 
ledged that the effects of recent legislation have given a 
wider interest to the history of wines which certainly 
justified Drs. Thudichum and Dupre in attempting to 
supply a good English manual of viticulture and oeno- 
lo gy- 
That on the book before us a vast amount of labour 
has been spent by the authors is very evident, and that 
they have brought together a great deal of information 
—much of it being the result of personal investigation 
in many lands—cannot be denied; but, probably, before 
it will be able to take its place as the standard work 
upon the subject, it will require considerable modifica¬ 
tions. At present some parts, except as they assist in 
qualifying the reader for the better comprehension of 
certain special sections, seem to have little in common 
vdth oenology, and appear to have undue prominence 
given to them; whilst information that would be of 
special service under present circumstances is almost 
entirely wanting. For instance, the section on the 
optical methods for the estimation of sugar in wines 
is introduced by a treatise several pages long on polari¬ 
zation of light, which, however good in itself and appro¬ 
priate in a work on physics, gives a soupQon of bookmak¬ 
ing to one on Manes, while, on the other hand, little is said 
towards correcting the ignorance in this country respect¬ 
ing the characteristics of good vine; such ignorance, to 
wit, as gives rise to the brandying of wines destined for 
this country on the plea of suiting the English palate. 
In fact, we are not sure but that in one place at least the 
authors assist to disseminate a very false taste. 
As might be expected, the book opens with a disserta¬ 
tion upon the origin of the various vines. The opinion 
formerly held that all European vines were derived from 
one particular species, U. vinifera , a native of Asia, 
which had been introduced into Europe in prehistoric 
times, is, after a review of the adverse evidence, discarded 
by the authors, the conclusion at which they arrive 
being that “ all those European countries which possess 
the climatic conditions have in their flora many species 
of the genus Vitis in a wild state, with such botanical 
characters as leave no doubt that the plants are indi¬ 
genous, produced by natural selection, and not derived 
from imported cultivated races of vines, or degenerated 
by natural selection from previously cultivated races.” 
In the section on the mineral constituents of the vine 
we are told that the soluble portion of the ash obtained 
by combustion comprises potassium and sodium, com¬ 
bined with carbonic and sulphuric acids and chlorine; 
the insoluble portion contains calcium, magnesium, iron 
and manganese, combined with carbonic, phosphoric 
and silicic acids, the proportions of these bases varying 
considerably according to the soil; but it is some¬ 
what doubtful science to state that it has been proved 
that where the vine cannot find a particular kind of 
base which it ordinarily wants for its development, it 
takes another instead, substituting a chemical equivalent 
of that which happens to be available for that which it 
cannot have, the sum of the oxygen combined -with them 
being always the same or undergoing but slight varia¬ 
tion. 
The second chapter deals with the general principles 
of viticulture. We must content ourselves with noticing 
a curious calculation as to the amount of manure required, 
by the vino. We are told that if five litres of dung be 
yearly dug- into the soil round a six-year old plant, it 
will be maintained in sufficient strength to produce every 
year twenty grapes of at least fifty grams weight. Who 
will say after this that agriculture cannot be included 
among the exact sciences ? 
Perhaps in no other instance has there been such a ten¬ 
dency to stare super antiquas vias as in the manufacture of 
wine. It is astonishing that in these days of machinery, 
the grape in many places is still crushed by the foot of 
man in the same rude manner that it was thousands of 
years ago. There is nothing more repulsive in the 
manufacture of the West Indian “ piwarrie,” which is- 
the fermented saliva in which cassava bread has been 
masticated, than is to be met with at the present day in 
the manufacture of Burgundy wine. In that district the 
crust formed on the top during fermentation is mixed 
with the vine beneath by men who get bodily into the 
wine and work it thoroughly in all directions for half 
an hour ; “ perspiring freely, not only from the intense- 
labour they perform, but also from the poisonous effect 
of the carbonic acid gas exhaled from the fermenting 
mass,” while the favourite “ luting” is a mixture of 
loam, clay and cowdung. 
However, it must not be supposed that there is nothing 
novel in the wine manufacture, form 1852 M. Petiot ap¬ 
pears to have discovered that a liquor could be produced 
by adding to the expressed grape juice an equal vo¬ 
lume of sugar and water, or by exhausting the squeezed 
husks even to the fifth time with successive quantities of 
sugar and water, which he claims to be “ wine in the 
full sense of the word.” On the whole, the authors ap¬ 
pear to agree with him, for, although in summing up 
the results, they speak of the product as a “beverage,”' 
* See ante, p. 338.- 
