THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[November 16, lb72. 
391 
iparliamtntars anir fain |rnmMngs. 
Child Murder and Suicide in Manchester. 
An inquest was held on Monday before Mr. E. Herford, 
the city coroner, concerning the deaths of Annie Gurlin, 
aged 29, widow, who lived in Cross Street, Thompson 
■Street, Oldham Road, and her daughter Ada Millicent 
Gurlin, aged about 2The first witness called was 
Ann Lawrence, residing in Rochdale Road, who deposed 
that the deceased Annie Gurlin was her daughter. The 
latter had been in a very melancholy way for some 
months, fretting about her husband, who died eight 
months ago. She seemed very cross with everybody, 
and was quite different to what she had previously been. 
Upon various occasions she had told witness that she 
should like to poison herself and her children. One day 
last week she took some laudanum, and it made her very 
poorly. She said that she intended to kill herself. Wit¬ 
ness left her at her house about ten o’clock on Saturday 
uight in her usual health. Witness took the other chil¬ 
dren home with her, leaving only the younger deceased 
there with her mother. On Sunday morning witness 
went hack to the house, unlocked the door and passed 
into the bedroom, where she found them both lying in 
bed together, dead. She started off for a doctor and the 
police, and when she returned she found the police in 
the house. She had not the least doubt that her daugh¬ 
ter was out of her mind. 
Police-constable William Hawkins received some in¬ 
formation, in consequence of which he entered the house. 
Upon the floor near the bed, where the two deceased 
lay, he found a bottle and spoon. 
Mr. J. Jordan, assistant to Mr. William Bentley, 
druggist, Shudehill, stated that about a fortnight 
ago the deceased, Annie Gurlin, came to his employer’s 
shop and asked if she could have an ounce of prussic 
acid for her husband, who was a photographer. He 
asked some questions, upon which the deceased fetched 
a woman, who supported her statement, and said that 
her husband was not dead. The prussic acid was then 
supplied in a bottle similar to the one produced. 
Mr. William Walls, surgeon, Oak Street, said the 
bottle found by the policeman contained prussic acid. 
Upon making a post-mortem examination of the two 
bodies he discovered indications of the presence of prussic 
■acid which had caused death. On the "Wednesday pre¬ 
viously. the elder deceased had called upon him and 
complained of pain in her left arm, and she wanted it 
bled, saying it had bled through a scratch she received 
a few days before, and it relieved her. He told her to 
bring her mother with her. She went away, but did 
not come, again. He thought that she wanted him to 
open a vein, and that she was not sane. 
The jury returned a verdict to the effect that Annie 
Gurlin poisoned herself and her child, Ada Millicent 
Gurlin, whilst in an unsound state of mind. It tran¬ 
spired that the woman who supported the statement 
made by the elder deceased to the druggist was named 
Mary Walker, and she was present at the inquest. The 
jury, in censuring her conduct, expressed their opinion 
that proceedings ought to be taken against her.— Man¬ 
chester Courier, 
Death by Misadventure. 
. On Wednesday, October 6, Dr. Hardwicke held an 
.inquest at 13, Devonshire Terrace, Paddington, touching 
the death of Harriet Scott, aged 74. It appeared that 
a chemist who prepared an injection ordered by her 
phj sician, inadvertently put in a double quantity of 
morphia. 
After deliberating for a considerable time the iury 
returned a verdict of “ Death by misadventure.” 
©Mtog. 
JOHN BOHLER. 
A recent obituary in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph 
contained a notice of the death of Mr. John Bohler, at 
the age of 75, and from a later issue we take the follow¬ 
ing interesting particulars:— 
Although neither a native nor a settled inhabitant of 
Sheffield, the late John Bohler was so well known to 
many of our townspeople, especially the older members 
of the medical profession, and to the students of botany 
in general in various parts of the kingdom, that a few 
words of record seem due to his memory. We believe 
he was born at South Wingfield, in Derbyshire, of a 
very humble stock, and of parents to whom he owed 
nothing beyond “ the accident of his birth.” He learnt 
to read and write, after a fashion, at the village school, 
and as early as possible was put to stocking-weaving, 
the common employment of the neighbourhood. From 
his earliest boyhood he had £t taste for collecting and 
identifying plants, heaps of which were piled up in his 
lodging-room. 
In due time he found that certain plants had not only 
medical virtues, but a selling price, so he became a col¬ 
lector for the apothecaries and druggists, and probably 
no man in England w r as better acquainted with the 
habitat of every officinal herb, infusions of which are 
recognized in the Pharmacopoeia or adopted in empirical 
practice. Hyoscyamus, colchicum, daphne, etc., con¬ 
tinued in use, but decoctions were giving way to alka¬ 
loids. He tried his hand at these, but he was no chemist. 
Curiously enough the disciple of Culpepper, Thornton 
and Hill never sank into that most arrant of quacks, the 
modern “ herb doctor.” 
His vocation of collector led to a loose, rambling, but 
sober and studious life. His means of purchasing books 
were exceedingly limited, but he borrowed and read most 
of the popular works on botanical science, of which 
he acquired a competent knowledge; these, added to his 
experience as a collector over a very Avide field, made 
him a welcome visitor to the closest naturalist. 
About thirty years ago his name appeared on a work 
entitled ‘ Lichenes Britannici,’ several facsimiles of 
which were published by the late Mr. Ridge; the speci¬ 
mens being collected and mounted by Bohler ; and the 
description written by Dr. Deakin, author of ‘ The 
Botany of the Coliseum of Rome.’ These “ time stains,” 
as they were somewhat poetically called by our fore¬ 
fathers, are mostly found growing on the barks of old 
trees, or on walls or rocks; they are sometimes rich in 
colour, and curious in their structure, especially as seen 
under the microscope. One arboreal species is known as 
Lecidea Bolderi. 
We believe he one year delivered the sessional lectures 
on botany at the Sheffield Medical School, besides gn r ing 
private lessons. Perhaps the most complimentary and 
only compensating employment he ever met with, was 
being engaged some years ago by a Committee of the 
British Association to assist in a botanical exploration 
of Snowdon, North Wales. He wrote the account of 
local plants in Dr. Aveling’s ‘ History of Roche Abbey.’ 
Of late years he has devoted his attention to the 
cryptogamic races, especially fungi, for mounted collec¬ 
tions of which he usually found purchasers. But toad¬ 
stool collecting was a lean pursuit, most persons caring 
little about any except the esculent ones. Nor was 
pondering in damp places and in the winter time, at his 
age, and often, it is to he feared, with an empty stomach 
and an insufficient supply of clothing, favourable to health, 
to say nothing of comfort. And so, from little to less, 
and, we are afraid, from that to nothing, the substance 
of the poor old man fell off. 
He was until about twelve months since one of the 
most untiring walkers in the kingdom, England and 
