May 31,1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
961 
temperance among educated native Indians lias 
alarmed both the orthodox and reforming parties of 
Hindoos. Brandy kills off the rich absentee Hindoo 
zemindars in Calcutta at a rate which the native 
papers lament, while the Mussulman seems to prefer 
opium and other drugs. The Bengal Legislature has 
just passed an Act to bring the cultivation and pre¬ 
paration, as well as the sale, of intoxicating drugs 
under the Board of Revenue, and to enable it to 
make more stringent rules for licences. It is farther 
stated that the dispensaries kept by natives in and 
around Calcutta are frequently used as places of 
carousal, brandy being supplied on the premises 
during the night. So frequently are the police in 
league with the liquor sellers, that an order has 
been issued upon the subject. 
With such a questionable association of dram 
drinking and drug selling in vogue it is not surprising 
that some of the natives are not altogether satisfied 
as to the superiority of European physic, and we 
learn from the Pall Mall Gazette that the Hakims, or 
practitioners of the old Indian system of medicine, 
have made a stand against the supersession of it 
by the European pliarmocopceia which has of late 
years been rapidly taking place, and that a company 
of them lately opened an “ Indo-European Medical 
Hall,” where only native drugs are to be sold. 
It is not quite fair, however, to credit the Euro¬ 
peans with the introduction of drinking customs into 
India. Baboo Rajendra Lal Mittra has recently 
shown by numerous quotations that the practice of 
drinking ardent spirits has been common in India 
from the earliest ages, though denounced by Menu 
and other sages. We reproduce one of these quota¬ 
tions as an illustration :— 
“ In the time of Kalidasa drinking seems to have been 
very common, for we find in the ‘ Sakuntala,’ the superin¬ 
tendent of police, who was no other than the lung’s 
brother-in-law, proposing, like an English policeman, or 
cabby, to spend the present offered him by the fisherman 
who recovered the lost ring, at the nearest grog-shop. 
“ Fisherman .— 1 Here’s half the money for you, my 
masters. It will serve to purchase the flowers you spoke 
of, if not to buy me your goodwill.’ 
“ Janulca .—‘ Well, now, that’s just as it should be.’ 
“ Superintendent.—‘ My good fisherman, you are an 
excellent fellow, and I begin to feel quite a regard for 
you. Let us seal our first friendship over a glass of good 
liquor. Come along to the next wineshop, and we’ll 
drink your health.’ ” 
As the date of Kalidasa’s drama of ‘ Sakuntala’ 
is variouslv attributed to the three or four centuries 
o 
nearest the commencement of the Christian era, the 
custom may fairly by this time be looked upon as a 
native one. 
ALUM AND NITRE AS POISONS. 
Some unusual cases of poisoning are reported from 
the Continent. In one case, which occurred at Liege, 
a man, aged 57 years, being troubled with gastric 
pains, sent to purchase some Epsom salts, and took 
about thirty grams of the substance supplied in a 
glass of cold water ; eight hours afterwards he died 
in great suffering. Under the supposition that the 
pain was caused by the action of the salts, no 
medical assistance was obtained until shortly before 
death. At first it was thought that salts of sorrel, 
delivered by the pharmacien in mistake, had been 
the cause ot death, and in the chemical examination 
of the contents of the stomach oxalic acid was con¬ 
sequently first sought for, but was not found. After 
a long and tedious operation, the analyist came to the 
conclusion that death had resulted from the swallow¬ 
ing of a large quantity of alum (sulphate of alumina 
and potash), probably in the calcined state. In the 
other case a Zouave who had obtained some nitre, 
which he had taken in water, was found in a state of 
violent delirium. Pacified and put to bed in the hos¬ 
pital, he shortly afterwards became insensible, the 
pulse grew weaker and weaker, and he died within 
two hours of his removal to the hospital. At the post 
mortem examination, the potash salt was found in 
the blood and the urine. The quantity of nitre de¬ 
livered by the pharmacien he estimated to be about 
thirty grams, quite a harmless dose, in his opinion, 
and one that he expressed himself ready to take at 
any time. 
USES OF THE GENUS VINCA. 
The two species of periwinkle (Vinca major and 
V. minor) which grow in the woods and thickets 
of this country are not valued for any medicinal or 
economic properties, though they are known to be 
bitter and astringent. The last named species, how¬ 
ever, is, in some parts of Continental Europe, used as 
a vulnerary, to stop haemorrhage and in other branches 
of medicine. From a correspondent in Mauritius we 
learn that a kind of tea, made from the leaves of 
V. rosea , L., acts like a charm in the cure of indi¬ 
gestion and dyspepsia ; and further, that a decoction 
made from the roots is invaluable for the cure of 
dysentery. In Bourbon the plant is known as 
saponaire, and is grown in gardens. We are told 
that fever is still raging over the whole of the 
Mauritius, which is not to be wondered at, consider¬ 
ing the filthy state of Port Louis, and the general 
neglect of proper sanitary measures. 
Mr. C. H. Wood, F.C.S., Editor of the ‘ Year-Book 
of Pharmacy ’ issued by the British Pharmaceutical 
Conference, has been appointed Quinologist to the 
Government of India on the Sikkim Cinchona 
Plantations. 
The Leeds Local Government Board have appointed 
Mr. Thomas Fairley, F.C.S., Public Analyst lor the 
Borough of Leeds, subject to the approval of the 
Local Government Board. Mr. Fairley is also ana¬ 
lyst to the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, and was 
recently Chemical Lecturer to the Leeds School of 
Medicine. 
