370 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [November 4,1871. 
tion tliat sixty grain-closes would be thus provided 
daily for 204,000 habitual chloral drunkards. But 
the Echo is equally dogmatic, and after a learned 
disquisition, in which we are informed that there is 
every reason to believe that chloral, like digitalis, is 
a “cumulative” drug, and that a course of small 
doses lias as fatal an effect as one big dose, it decides 
that beer drinkers are the great consumers of chloral 
hydrate. It is explained that the property possessed 
by cocculus indicus, of inducing great thirst and 
making the victim lazy, and disposing him to linger 
where he -may at the time he seated, is shared by 
chloral hydrate, whilst the latter has the extra re¬ 
commendation of costing less. Should this explana¬ 
tion be true, there will be matter for the serious 
consideration of all beer drinkers—especially in view 
of the cumulative properties—and we may expect a 
repetition of the combined purgation and puff which 
was thrust upon the public when, a few years since, 
the consumption of strychnia and bitter ale was 
stated to be in relative proportions. But what 
ought to become of those persons who continually 
take large doses, such, for instance, as the gentle¬ 
man who recently recorded in the Lancet that he 
had taken thirty-five grains nightly for eighteen 
months ? 
There are others, however, who have taken notice 
of the enormous development of chloral hydrate 
manufacture. In the Customs and Inland Revenue 
Act, passed at the end of the last session, there is a 
clause providing that upon the importation into 
Great Britain and Ireland of any article in the 
manufacture of which spirit shall be used, there 
shall be charged upon such article, in respect of the 
spirit so used, a duty equivalent to that which is 
chargeable upon the like quantity of spirit on its 
importation. This, in the case of chloral hydrate, 
amounts, we believe, to L\ 3d. per lb. We doubt 
not that the Lords of Her Majesty’s Treasury will 
participate in the “contented satisfaction” asso¬ 
ciated by the Spectator with the consumption of 
this drug. 
We have already called attention.to the possible 
risk attending the amateur administration of this 
useful remedy by publishing the remarks made by 
Dr. Richardson on the subject. Since that time we 
have had to record several cases of death resulting 
from its improper use. We take this opportunity of 
republishing from the Lancet the following letter 
from Dr. Andrew Dunlop, of Jersey:— 
“As a belief in the perfect harmlessness of chloral 
seems to bo still wide-spread, perhaps you wall allow me 
to add my word of warning to those already given, and 
to call attention to some alarming symptoms I have seen 
produced by it. On four or five occasions, after giving 
twenty or thirty grains of chloral, I have found that the 
patient slept for about a quarter of an hour, and then 
awoke in a state of deadly faintness; the lips livid, the 
face pale, and the pulse almost imperceptible. There 
was a sense of intense exhaustion and impending death, 
mingled with an indescribable delirious feeling; this 
lasted for about five or ten minutes. Curiously enough, 
one patient, as ho was rallying from this state said, 
‘ Don’t give me any more of that chloroform.’ He had 
taken chloroform a day or two before, and the sensations 
produced by the chloral so closely resembled his feelings 
on that occasion, that he thought I had given him chlo¬ 
roform again. Another of these patients, in addition to- 
the other symptoms, saw figures dancing wildly round, 
the foot of her bed. This patient had mitral disease, 
and was the only one of the four or five who had heart 
affection. As has already been indicated in the Lancet y 
by Drs. Fuller and Crichton Browne, chloral has a de¬ 
pressing action on the heart, and should therefore be- 
avoided in all cases where the activity of that organ is 
impaired. 
“ While it occasionally produces ill-effects, chloral 
also frequently disappoints us, especially when it is given, 
to relieve pain, or when the patient has been accustomed 
to opium—by acting very inefficiently, or by producing- 
no effects at all. 
“ For my own part, I have found it most serviceable- 
in cases of simple insomnia, and in the sleeplessness o£ - 
phthisis and some nervous disorders.” 
The Editor of the American Journal of Pharmacy r 
in reprinting Mr. Hanbury’s interesting historical 
notes on galangal,* remarks that the root is little- 
known in American pharmacy, and perhaps never- 
employed in the regular practice of American physi¬ 
cians. Blit it is frequently sold in various parts of 
the country by pedlars and travelling “ medicine¬ 
men ” as a cure-all, or as a cure for dyspepsia,, 
diarrhoea, headache, or toothache. During the last 
few years samples have been repeatedly received, 
from localities where it had been sold under the 
names of China, India and East India root. Under 
the latter name it was recently sold in the streets of' 
Philadelphia at about twenty-five cents per ounce,— 
a moderate charge as compared with that exacted in 
some western districts, where fifty cents per ounce,, 
or eight dollars per pound, has been the price paid 
for it. 
The lectureship in Materia Medica and Thera¬ 
peutics at Middlesex Hospital is now vacant. 
An effort is being made at Bow to limit as far as; 
practicable the hours of labour in the pharmaceutical 
establishments in that locality. A circular has been 
issued by Messrs. Barnes, Butcher, Dean and 
Garman, stating their intention, after Monday next,, 
to close at nine o’clock every evening except Satur¬ 
day, when the hour will be eleven, and requesting- 
their customers to supply their wants before those* 
times. We hope that these gentlemen will meet, 
with the co-operation, not only of their customers,, 
but also of their brother pharmaceutists. 
Professor Huxley will deliver the second Lecture 
of the course on Elementary Physiology on Monday- 
next, at 4 p.m., at the London Institution. 
* See ante, p. 248. 
