714 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 4,1871. 
Tite an ounce of chloral; and the supply from London 
had arrived subsequently to that date. After his death, 
fifteen of the bottles were found full, and one empty; 
about two ounces of the solution remaining in the bottle 
above mentioned, on the table in his bedroom. From 
this we conclude that, in the ten days between the 17th 
and 27th of January, he had taken fourteen drachms of 
•chloral—presuming that the solution in the bottle con¬ 
tained an ounce to the half-pint. If, however, it con¬ 
tained half an ounce only, the bottle must have been 
four .times filled; and he had, therefore, taken fifteen 
•drachms in the ten days. He was constantly in the 
habit of “doctoring himself,” and, among other things, 
frequently took carbonate of soda, as much as eighty 
grains at one dose—purchasing it from Mr. Tite by the 
half-pound. His housekeeper was not aware whether 
he had taken any on the night before his death; and we 
are, therefore, unable to ascertain whether any decom¬ 
position of the chloral had taken place. 
Action for Poisoning a Dog. 
A case of considerable interest to sportsmen occupied 
Mr. Baron Cleasby the whole of Monday at the Warwick 
Assizes. The plaintiff, the Rev. James Finch, curate in 
charge of Burmanton, near Shipston-on-Stour, Warwick¬ 
shire, sued the gamekeeper of Mr. Thomas Wright, of 
Tidmington House, Worcestershire, to recover £50, the 
value of a favourite Pomeranian dog of the plaintiff’s, 
alleged to have been poisoned by the defendant. The 
case for the plaintiff was, that the defendant placed 
strychnine in rabbits’ paunches, and left them about the 
coverts, and that the dog, which the defendant had 
threatened to destroy, was poisoned by the strychnine. 
The latter fact was conclusively established by an analy¬ 
sis of the dog’s stomach. The jury found a verdict for 
the plaintiff, with £10 damages .—Daily News. 
Poisoning of a Child by Caustic. 
An inquest has been held in Leeds to inquire into the 
circumstances attending the death of Frederick William 
Day, fourteen months old. The child had been taken to 
Mr. Holmes’s surgery, in Beckett Street, in consequence 
of its having a slight ulceration under its tongue. Mr. 
Holmes, having instructed his assistant, Mr. Jenkinson, 
to apply some caustic to the part affected, he took a 
piece, wrapped it in paper, and, holding it in his right 
hand, applied it to the ulcerated part of the tongue. 
Whilst he had his fingers in the child’s mouth it sud- 
denly threw back its head, and its gums, coming in con¬ 
tact with the caustic, knocked it out of the operator’s 
fingers, and it slipped down the child’s throat, its death 
following a few hours afterwards. A post-mortem exami¬ 
nation was made by Mr. Scattergood, who found that the 
death had been caused by caustic. Evidence was given 
that caustic was sometimes applied in the way it was in 
this case, but that it was safer to apply it in a holder. The 
jury returned a verdict that the child had been acciden¬ 
tally poisoned, but expressed an opinion that the mode 
employed was not a safe way of applying caustic when 
it was to be used inside a person’s mouth .—Leeds Mer¬ 
cury. 
[*** H i s n °f stated in the report what caustic was 
used, but we suppose it to have been nitrate of silver.— 
Ed. Pharm. Jo urn.] 
Case of Alleged Poisoning. 
On Monday, at the Town Hall, Newnham, William 
Masson, a Licentiate of the College of Physicians of Edin¬ 
burgh, and Edward Henry Coleman, an apothecary of 
Mitcheldean, were charged with feloniously killing and 
slaying Ann Masson, wife of the said William Masson. 
In January last an inquest was held at the residence 
of Dr. Masson, at Mitcheldean, on the body of Mrs. 
Masson. The husband then stated that his wife had 
access to his surgery, and took two drachms of lauda¬ 
num while suffering from neuralgia. He called in an 
apothecary named Coleman (the other prisoner), who 
administered hot brandy-and-water. Mrs. Masson fell 
back in a comatose state and died in forty-three hours 
afterwards. Suspicions were aroused with regard to 
the conduct of Masson, and hence the present pro¬ 
ceedings. 
Mr. Charles Whatmough, a surgeon, was called in to 
see Mrs. Masson on Saturday night, the 14th of January, 
and found her in a perfectly helpless state of coma. Dr. 
Masson said she had taken about two drachms of opium 
from a bottle in the surgery, having wasted a portion on 
the counter ; that he had prepared an emetic of sulphate 
of zinc and mustard, which she refused to take ; and that 
she had taken a hot glass of brandy-and-water. Witness 
gave it as an opinion that, prior to the comatose state, 
death might have been prevented or retarded by scientific 
means. 
Mr. Fitzherbert Jones, a surgeon, was also called to 
see deceased a few hours before her death. He knew of 
no medical authority that recommended hot brandy-and- 
water for poisoning by opium. 
Thomas Buchanan Washbourn, M.D., was of opinion 
that death might have been prevented or considerably 
retarded by scientific means. The usual means would 
have been to administer an emetic or to use the stomach 
pump, which might certainly have been done with 
effect before the patient was in a comatose state. The 
stomach pump might have been used with effect after 
stupor had commenced. Cold affusions and moving about 
would retard comatose symptoms. The sleepiness men¬ 
tioned in the evidence before the coroner by the prisoner 
Coleman he should have considered as the commence¬ 
ment of stupor. He considered that brandy-and-water 
would, under such circumstances, lend an additional 
force to the narcotic influence of the poison. Death 
would be accelerated according to the quantity of alco¬ 
hol taken. 
Margaret Maclough said that Dr. Masson married 
her sister, who was then a servant living at Guy’s 
Hospital. Her sister died on Sunday morning, the 17th 
of January, after drinking laudanum from a bottle. She 
spoke to the frequency of quarrels between the Doctor 
and her sister. After her death Dr. Masson told her not 
to say that her sister had not taken poison purposely, 
and promised her money and her sister’s clothes, caution¬ 
ing her that if she said anything her sister’s body would 
be cut in pieces and bulled in the cross roads. That 
frightened her so that she did not say anything about it 
until questioned by a policeman in London. She was 
quite certain they had quarrelled on the day the poison 
was taken. 
Witnesses were called for the defence, whose evidence 
contradicted the statement of the girl as to the terms on 
which the prisoner and deceased lived together. 
The Bench eventually committed both prisoners for 
trial, refusing to accept bail in the case of Dr. Masson.— 
Standard. 
Poisoning by Carbolic Acid. 
On Monday last, a police officer named Jefford, who 
has lately been acting as inspector at the Dale Street 
Police Court, Liverpool, called a man named Thompson, 
whom he asked to fetch him a pint of beer. Thompson 
said he had no bottle, and Jefford then took one from a 
cupboard in the passage and gave it to him. Thompson 
then brought the beer, and placed the bottle at the back 
of some boxes which were close to the cupboard from 
which the bottle was taken. Having done so, he was 
going along the passage, when ho heard Jefford call out 
that he had taken something wrong, and he was expec¬ 
torating violently. Thompson hurried back, and found 
