50 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
[July 1G, 1870. 
founded. Already enough has been seen to show that 
they are not so harmless as many suppose. Mr. Creasy, 
to whom I have before alluded as practising at Bedding- 
ton, said very recently, before a committee of the House 
of Commons:—I know the sewage farm belonging to the 
Croydon Board of Works, at Beddington, and have had 
experience in my professional capacity of what condition 
of health is around those flats, for I have known the dis¬ 
trict ever since it was a sewage farm. The first case of 
typhoid fever occurred in the place in 1867, and from 
that time to this there has been typhoid fever in every 
cottage on the estate; and I find around it that almost 
every disease assumes a particular type, accompanied 
with what we call a sewage tongue.” 
In the spring of last year I was inquiring into the 
condition of a stream called the Hebble Brook, which 
receives the sewage of Halifax, and I was informed that 
at a place near the outfall of the brook into the Calder, 
some of the sewage was distributed upon the land, and that 
it caused such a serious outbreak of typhoid fever in a 
neighbouring model village, belonging to Mr. Ackroyd, 
that it was found absolutely necessary to discontinue it. 
Again, in the autumn of 1862, I had an opportunity 
of witnessing, on a very large scale, the morbific effects 
of sewer gases in the town of Shaftesbury, and the ad¬ 
jacent village of Enmore Green. The town had been 
recently drained by a gentleman of no great practical 
acquaintance with the subject, and he carried the sewage 
into the ponds and ditches around the town. It was an 
experiment of a very instructive kind, for soon the peo¬ 
ple were attacked with enteric fever, and in less than a 
year one-eighth of the whole population was down with 
the disease; for out of about 3500 persons, 448 were at¬ 
tacked. I am afraid, therefore, that these miasms, even 
when diluted with air, are capable of producing serious 
mischief, and that such facts are more conclusive than 
the statistics of Dr. Carpenter, which seem to show that 
the people of Beddington and Norwood have actually 
been better in health since the sewage was brought to 
them than before. 
3. I would remind you that the efficacy of sewage 
irrigation is entirely dependent on the percolation of 
sewage matter, and the distribution of it through the 
subsoil water. It cannot but be, therefore, that this 
water is polluted to such an extent as to endanger the 
neighbouring wells. Many instances of this have al¬ 
ready come under my notice; and it would seem, from 
the remarks of Dr. Carpenter, that Dr. Frankland had 
himself stated that the chalk well at Croydon, from which 
the public supply is obtained, is actually polluted with 
the soakage of foul matters from the irrigated grounds 
at Beddington. The morbific effects of such water are 
but too frequently observed, as the annual reports of the 
medical officer of the Privy Council abundantly testify; 
and then, again, if the doctrines of Professor Yon Petten- 
kofer, of Munich, be correct, as they certainly seem to be, 
that fluctuation in the level of ground water charged 
with sewage is the most active agent of fever and cholera, 
the consequences of irrigation may be most serious. 
{To be continued.) 
The subject of which this paper treats is important in 
its general bearings, and so urgently forced upon the conside¬ 
ration of municipal authorities throughout the kingdom, that it 
has been deemed necessary to add some notes in reference to 
the opinions and assertions put forward by Dr. Letheby with 
great decision, and with some aspect of plausibility, though 
they are far from being regarded as sound or judicious by sani¬ 
tary authorities either here or abroad. It is probably in any 
case premature to pronounce so decisively as Dr. Letheby does 
that sewage irrigation is an unmitigated evil; and, in spite 
of the positive declarations made by those who act with him, 
three sewage irrigation bills have passed both Houses of Par¬ 
liament this session. Those who can distinguish between 
what is termed “scientific evidence ” and that evidence which 
is recognized in science, will probably fail to share Dr. 
Letheby’s shame, or to participate with him in his apprecia¬ 
tion of what ho declares “absurdly ridiculous.”—E d. Ph. J. 
CRYSTALLIZED HYDRATE OF SODA. 
According to a communication made by 0. Hermes 
to the Chemical Society of Berlin, crystals containing 
30-09 per cent, of anhydrous soda (Na 2 0), and having 
the formula 2NaH0 + 7H. 2 0, are deposited when a 
concentrated aqueous solution of caustic soda, sp. gr. 
P365, is exposed to the action of intense cold. The 
crystals form rhombic prisms, and are perfectly trans¬ 
parent and colourless; they begin to melt at 6° C. A 
point worthy of being remembered is, that impure solu¬ 
tions of soda, contaminated with chloride, sulphate, and 
carbonate, are capable of depositing these crystals in a 
state of tolerable purity. 
The occurrence of errors respecting the composition 
of these hydrated crystals in some of the newest treatises 
on chemistry induced the author to bring the subject 
before the Chemical Society of Berlin. 
ON THE TIME FOR COLLECTING THE LEAVES 
OF DIGITALIS. 
BY F. SCHNEIDER. 
The pharmacopoeias and text-books direct to collect 
these leaves of the flowering plant. I had the leaves 
annually collected in the Black Forest during the latter 
part of May or beginning of June, requiring always 
some flowering stems. In appearance I had a beautiful 
drug, but rarely could I get a satisfactory reaction by 
tannin and ferrocyanide of potassium in the infusion. 
In 1869, a botanical friend, formerly apothecary, offered 
to supply Digitalis, which he collected near the end of 
August and beginning of September, as he had done 
during his long pharmaceutical practice, from the rosu- 
late leaves of plants, flowering the following year. The 
Digitalis yielded a deeply-coloured infusion of strong 
odour and taste, and gave with tannin at once a dense 
precipitate ; with ferrocyanide of potassium, after twelve 
to fifteen minutes, a strong turbidity. The leaves should, 
therefore, be collected not in the flowering season, but 
late in summer.— American Journal of Pharmacy , from 
Schweiz. JFochensckr. f. Ph. 
APPLICATION FOR BALDNESS. 
Take of 
Rum. 
Rectified Spirit ) 
Distilled Water J 
Tincture of Cantharides 
Carbonate of Potash. . 
Carbonate of Ammonia. 
each 
500 parts. 
75 
3 
3 
5 
» 
Mix the liquids, then dissolve the salts, and filter. 
After having saturated the bald part for some minutes 
with this liquid, wash the head with water.— Journal dc 
Pharmacie et de Chimie. 
Indelible Ink. —The following recipe is given by 
PuscherDissolve 4 parts of anilin black in 16 parts 
by weight of alcohol, with 60 drops strong hydrochloric 
acid, and dilute the dark blue solution with 90 parts by 
weight of water, in which 6 parts of gum arabic has 
been previously dissolved. This ink is said not to act 
upon steel pens or to suffer any alteration by alkalies or 
acids.— Deutsche Industriezcitung . 
Poisoning- by Corrosive Acids. — On Monday, 
June 27th, a man was found in Richmond Park, lying 
on the ground apparently in great agony. Near him 
was a small bottle, labelled “ spirits of salts.” He was 
conveyed to the infirmary, where he lies in a dangerous 
state. A few days previously, a man, a plumber and 
glazier by trade, in a fit of temporary insanity, swallowed 
a quantity" of fluoric acid; he was conveyed to Middlesex 
Hospital, where he died almost immediately. 
