December 21, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
495 
the prisoner, who said he would give him a month's 
"trial for two guineas. Any "extras he required Richard¬ 
son was to pay for, but he was to he supplied with medi¬ 
cine in the usual way. From that time Richardson 
appears to have paid a visit to the prisoner about once a 
week. The actual offence charged in the warrant was 
alleged to have been committed in July, when Richardson 
paid prisoner £25 for a box of medicines. He was shown 
a number of what were called testimonials from distin¬ 
guished persons, and was by this means induced to pay 
£3 10s. for a box of medicine, which, it was stated there 
was evidence to prove, was worth only a few shillings. 
A bottle, produced, was in the £25 box. It was labelled 
■“ for the heart.” Prisoner told Richardson he had the 
heart disease, and gave him the medicine for the disease. 
He also said his kidneys were diseased, and gave him 
medicine for them. It was stated that it would be 
proved that neither of these bottles contained any- 
thing that could effect such cures. The prisoner 
was remanded upon bail until Friday. On the pre¬ 
vious day, when the warrant was applied for, it was 
.stated that a great portion of the so-called medicines 
had been examined, and had been found to consist 
of water coloured with a magenta dye. In several 
instances Jackson had posted the arms of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society upon his nostrums. Amongst the articles 
which he stated possessed such wondrous virtues, and for 
which he charged almost fabulous prices, were such 
things as aniseed balls, smokers’ bonbons, chocolate 
•creams, etc. In a peculiarly shaped bottle he had placed 
some diluted muriatic acid, which he represented as being 
the great restorer of life and for which he charged several 
guineas. He also sold to Richardson some bottles con¬ 
taining a liquid, which he alleged he had himself ex¬ 
tracted from the Temple of God in South America.— 
J Eastern Morning Neivs. 
Death from Opium. 
On Monday morning, December 16, an inquest was 
field at Scarborough, before Mr. R. Collinson, Borough 
Coroner, respecting the death of Elizabeth Brown. She 
resided at the house of a labouring man, named Watson, 
and had been known to Mr. Meggit, surgeon, as being 
addicted to taking opium for the last twelve years. On 
Wednesday night last she complained of headache, 
■when Watson accused her of having taken opium. 
She made no reply, and was helped upstairs to bed, 
where she became so ill that at about two o’clock in 
the morning Mr. Meggit was sent for. His assistant 
.attended immediately, and found the woman suffering 
from the effects of opium. . He administered the usual 
remedies, and at nine o’clock she was visited by Mr. 
Meggit, who considered the case hopeless. The remedies 
were continued, but she died on Friday evening. A 
small box containing about 25 or 30 grains of extract of 
opium was found in her bed, and was believed to have 
fallen from her pocket. Mr. Meggit said that four grains 
were sufficient to cause death, and he had no doubt that 
deceased had died from an overdose of the drug. The 
jury returned a verdict of “ Died from the excessive use of 
•opium.” Deceased was 51 years of age. — Sheffield 
Telegraph. 
The Attempt to Poison by Arsenic. 
At the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday, before 
Mr. Justice Brett, Samuel Hoy, 12, was indicted for 
attempting to administer a dose of poison to Emily Hoy, 
with intent to commit murder. 
The evidence as to the circumstances under which it 
was charged that the prisoner attempted to administer 
a quantity of arsenic to his stepmother, in a cup of tea, 
was described last week (p. 475). 
The jury found the prisoner guilty, and he was sen¬ 
tenced to ten years’ penal servitude. 
Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy. By 
H. Privat Deschanel : translated and edited by 
J. D. Everett, M.A., etc., Professor of Natural 
Philosophy in Queen’s College, Belfast. London: 
Blackie and Son. 
Professor Everett has done good service to science by 
this excellent translation of Deschanel’s well-known 
treatise on Physics. But the work is much more than a 
mere translation. It has the far higher merit of con¬ 
taining much original matter of considerable value. 
The amount of these additions may be roughly esti¬ 
mated from the fact that though there is rather more 
text in a page of the English edition than in a page of 
the French, yet the former volume contains fifty pages 
more than the latter. Both editions are before us ; we 
know them each pretty well, and there cannot be a 
doubt that Professor Everett has very much enhanced, 
in every way, the value of the original work. Even the 
woodcuts, which we thought so splendid in the French 
edition, look far better on the toned paper of the 
English copy. One or two of the additions made by 
Professor Everett catch our eye at once. Regarding the 
cause of capillary phenomena, Deschanel gives. an 
altogether poor and unsatisfactory account, occupying 
but one page ; on the other hand, Everett has dealt with 
the subject in the light of recent investigation, and 
devotes eight pages to it. The chapter on the pendulum, 
too, has eleven pages added to it. An entire chapter is 
also added to the treatise on sound, and there are some 
useful additions to the parts on heat and optics. 
The additions on the subject of electric potential and 
electric and magnetic,units are extremely valuable, and 
supply a want long felt by students of physics. For 
at the present time these terms are constantly used, but 
are little understood by those who are not electricians, 
as none of the ordinary text-books explain their mean¬ 
ing. Our readers may therefore be glad to read the 
following useful remarks on electric potential and electric 
force, which Professor Everett gives in chap. 39 A:— 
“ When electrical potential is constant throughout a 
given space, there is no electrical force in that space ; 
and conversely, if there be an absence of electrical force 
in a given space, the potential throughout that space 
must be uniform. These propositions apply to the space 
within a hollow conductor. They also apply to the 
whole substance of a solid conductor, and to the whole 
space enclosed within the outer surface of a hollow con¬ 
ductor. Whenever a conductor is in electrical equili¬ 
brium, it has the same potential throughout the whole 
of its substance, and also through any completely en¬ 
closed hollows which it may contain. When a conductor 
is not in electrical equilibrium, currents set in tending 
to restore equilibrium; and* the direction of such 
currents is always from places of higher to places of 
lower potential. In like manner, when a small posi¬ 
tively electrified body experiences electrical force tend¬ 
ing to move it, the direction of this force is from higher 
tolower potential. When flow of electricity is compared 
with flow of heat, potential is the analogue of tempera¬ 
ture. Heat flows from places of higher to places of 
lower temperature. 
“The precise direction of the force exerted upon a 
positively electrified particle (or upon an element of 
positive electricity) when brought to a place where 
potential’ has not a constant value from point to point, 
is the direction in which potential diminishes most 
rapidly. A negative electrified particle (or an element 
of negative electricity) will be urged in the opposite 
direction, which is the direction in which potential in¬ 
creases most rapidly. We here use the words increase 
and decrease in the algebraical sense. _. . . Lines oj 
electrical force are the lines along which resultant e ec- 
1 trical force acts. .... An analogy is thus sug- 
