July 30,1670.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
93 
DAMAGES AGAINST A DRUGGIST. 
Court of Passage, Liverpool. 
Kelly and Wife v. Trilfield.— This was a case in 
which the plaintiff and his wife sought to recover damages 
from a druggist in Liverpool, as solatium for inju¬ 
ries sustained by Mr. Kelly in consequence of the de¬ 
fendant administering to Sarah Kelly some noxious drug, 
by which her health was hurt and destroyed. Dr. Com- 
mins was for the plaintiff, and Mr. M'Oubrey for the de¬ 
fendant, who, in answer to the declaration of the plain¬ 
tiff, had entered a plea of not guilty. The case for the 
plaintiffs was that on the evening of the 20th March, 
1869, Mrs. Kelly went to the defendant’s shop and asked 
for half an ounce of castor oil, for which she took a small 
glass. She asked him to put in some water to prevent 
the oil sticking to the glass, but instead of doing that he 
put in some peppermint. Mrs. Kelly then told him 
that she did not want peppermint, upon which he emptied 
the glass, and taking another bottle from the shelf poured 
in something which appeared to be pure water. He then 
poured in the castor oil, and covered the glass over with 
a piece of paper. Mrs. Kelly took the oil home and laid 
it on the corner of the chimney-piece in her bedroom, 
where it remained till the morning of the 23rd March, 
when about four o’clock she got out of bed and swal¬ 
lowed it. She had no sooner taken the oil, and had 
scarcely time to lay the glass on the table, when she felt 
a burning sensation in her mouth, throat, and chest. She 
became sick, and immediately vomited the oil up on the 
floor, blood coming up with it. Her mouth and throat 
were excoriated, and the boards of the floor where she 
had vomited are all blackened with the liquid. For two 
or three months Mrs. Kelly had suffered much from the 
effects of the unfortunate mistake, especially during her 
confinement, which happened five days afterwards. Dr. 
Commins said they were not in a position to say what 
the defendant had put in the glass to produce such effects 
as these, but there was no doubt it had been some strong 
drug winch had been put in instead of the water. The 
medical evidence was to the effect that either sal volatile 
or liquor potassae would have produced the effects seen 
on the plaintiff’s throat. Mr. M'Oubrey, for the defence, 
stated that the defendant had only put cinnamon water 
in the glass, and suggested that if Mrs. Kelly swallowed 
any deleterious drug it must have been some of the mix¬ 
ture she was in the habit of using as a French polisher. 
The defendant was then called, and said he had carried 
on business in Liverpool as a chemist and druggist for 
fifteen or twenty years. He recollected the plain¬ 
tiff coming to his shop on the 20th March, 1869, and 
asking for some castor oil. She told him she would have 
anything but peppermint in it, and he then took down a 
bottle from a shelf opposite the counter, and put some 
cinnamon water in the glass. Mrs. Kelly returned on 
the Tuesday morning and said her mouth was sore, and 
then she three times pointed out to him the bottle from 
which he poured the liquid into the glass before he put 
in the castor oil. This bottle contained cinnamon water. 
Defendant said there was nothing approaching to liquor 
potassse kept on that shelf—in fact he kept none of these 
alkaline matters near the place where he took the cinna¬ 
mon water from.—The jury found for the plaintiff, da¬ 
mages £10. 
[*#* We insert the report of this case as it appeared in the 
Liverpool ‘ Daily Post,’ but confess that we are unable to per¬ 
ceive from it the grounds on which the jury found for the 
plaintiff. In the first place, the length of time during which 
the castor oil was left “on the corner of the chimney-piece,” 
apparently in an open glass, affords room for the possibility 
of some deleterious material having been added in some way. 
The account of the effects produced by the supposed “ noxious 
drug,” are, at least, vague, and there is no statement of the 
medical evidence by which they might have been rendered 
intelligible.— Ed. Pit. J.] 
ON THE COMBINATIONS OF CARBONIC 
ANHYDRIDE WITH AMMONIA AND WATER. 
BY EDWARD DIVERS, M.D. 
(Continued from p. 46.) 
Preparation .—Ammonium carbonate may be prepared 
in various ways :— 
(a.) By digesting in a closed flask the commercial car¬ 
bonate, crushed small, with strong solution of ammonia 
for two hours, or not much less, at a temperature not 
exceeding 12° C., or thereabouts, the ammonium carbo¬ 
nate is left as a mealy, obscurely crystalline mass. It is 
to be dried by pressure between folds of bibulous paper; 
this operation, after most of the mother-liquid has been 
absorbed by a few changes of paper, being conducted in 
a chamber as small as convenient, and as far as possible 
filled by the salt and the paper used to dry it,—every 
care, at the same time, being taken to expose it as briefly 
as possible to the free action of the atmosphere in this 
stage of the drying. The operation is practically com¬ 
plete when the salt no longer makes distinct wet marks 
on the drying-paper, though it will then still feel damp. 
If, when the drying is nearly finished, the salt is found 
to be firmly adhering to the paper when a change is 
made, the operation has been so performed as to allow of 
decomposition taking place, through insufficient exclu¬ 
sion of air, either by having adopted imperfect means 
for protecting the salt while it was between the folds of 
paper, or by having made the changes of paper too 
slowly or too many times. In warm weather it is well 
to surround the chamber with ice.* 
(b.) By digesting the commercial carbonate (or any 
other carbonate of ammonium) with strong solution of 
ammonia in a closed vessel at a temperature of 20°-25° 
until it is dissolved, and leaving the solution thus ob¬ 
tained in a cool place, with the vessel containing it not 
thoroughly closed, in order that some of the ammonia 
may escape, when minute crystals form, converting it at 
first into a semi-transparent magma, but afterwards be¬ 
coming distinct, interlacing, slender prisms. One part 
of the commercial carbonate to four parts by weight of 
the strong solution of ammonia is a convenient propor¬ 
tion in which to take them. The digestion generally 
takes about two days. It may happen when the am¬ 
monia has not been allowed to escape, and the quantity 
of carbonate which has been added is relatively great, 
that a few larger crystals, having quite a different ap¬ 
pearance to the others, will form ; when this is the case, 
the solution must be warmed until these crystals have 
dissolved, and at the same time some ammonia be al¬ 
lowed to escape, and then on again cooling it these 
crystals will not re-form. On the other hand, when by 
prolonged digestion at a gentle heat, a very large quan¬ 
tity of the commercial carbonate has been dissolved in 
the strongest ammonia-water, fortified occasionally by 
the passage of ammonia-gas in the cold, the solution 
only yields the ammonium carbonate with difficulty, 
until most of the ammonia has been allowed to escape 
from it by keeping it in an imperfectly-closed vessel, and 
the crystals are then often large, flattened prisms. In 
separating minute crystals of ammonium carbonate from 
their mother-liquor, and preparing them for analysis, 
the same plan is to be adopted as in the previous me¬ 
thod. The preparation is somewhat more manageable 
than the preparation of the mealy form, and the pre¬ 
sence of the crystalline lustre serves as a means of test¬ 
ing its success. 
* The chamber I made use of was a small glass pan witlx 
vertical sides, having another similar pan, or else a beaker, 
just large enough to glide into it. On the bottom of the pan 
a thick layer of circular filters, just fitting the pan, were laid; 
then came the salt, and over this a second layer of filters; on 
this a pad of tow, and, lastly, the upper pan, weighted, and 
sometimes filled with ice. 
