718 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[M.\rch 2, 1872. 
brought into court to make the law known, and the 
magistrates would inflict only the small penalty of 
2s. 6d. — Sentinel. 
SbiciDE by a Vermin Killer. 
An inquest was held on Wednesday, February 28th> 
on the body of Elizabeth Barrow, aged eighteen, who 
died on the previous Sunday from the effects of poison 
administered by herself. It appeared from the evidence 
that on Tuesday, the 20th February, deceased had pur¬ 
chased a packet of Steiner’s Vermin Paste at a dry- 
salter’s, and had taken it mixed with tea and sugar. 
At first she denied having taken any poison, and showed 
no signs of poisoning until the next evening, wdien she 
was taken ill and a medical man was called in. She did 
not die until the following Sunday. 
Samuel Harrison said he was assistant to his father, a 
drysalter, carrying on business at 72, Huddersfield Road. 
He remembered selling the deceased a bottle of Steiner’s 
Vermin Paste on Tuesday the 20th instant. The paste 
contained phosphorus. In consequence of something 
said to him he saw her on the evening of the same day. 
Asked her if she had taken poison, when she said, “ No.” 
He asked her for the bottle, but that, she said, had been 
thrown away. He then told her he would fetch the 
police, but she replied that she did not care for that, and 
he then left her, believing that she had not taken the 
paste. Witness read a communication from Steiner and 
Co., containing a statement made by Arthur Hill Hassall, 
M.D., that he had tested the paste and testified “that it 
does not contain any of the poisons mentioned in the 
recent Pharmacy Act, and the sale of which is restricted 
thereby.” 
Witness produced a list of the poisons prohibited to 
be sold except under certain regulations, and the Coroner, 
after reading it, said there was one sentence as follows: 
“ Every compound containing poison and sold for the 
destruction of vermin.” So that the paragraph witness 
had read was a most misleading one, representing that 
the sale of this poison was not prohibited, simply be¬ 
cause phosphorus, of which it was principally composed, 
was not mentioned in the Pharmacy Act. 
Witness: I can’t see that. 
The Coroner : But I can, and if you like I will direct 
a prosecution which will test the matter. That will, 
perhaps, be the better plan. 
Witness observed that there were no less than 700 
drysalters in London who sold the paste. 
The Coroner : Then they should not. The paste is a 
poison, and a most deadly poison, and this cannot be too 
well known. 
The coroner in summing up the evidence said he 
thought the vermin destroyer ought not to be sold by 
drysalters and others without the precautions required 
by the Act. It was a very wrong thing to sell such 
compounds to young people. He would be very sorry 
to do so, but the only way would be to institute proceed¬ 
ings against the man Harrison for selling the poison 
without carrying out the requirements of the Pharmacy 
Act. It was decided to adjourn the inquest to next 
Thursday, and in the meantime a post-mortem examina¬ 
tion will be made for the purpose of discovering whether 
any other poison had been taken except the paste. 
gtliuto. 
Diseases of the Hair: a Popular Treatise upon the 
Affections of the Hair System, with Advice upon the 
Preservation and Management of Hair. By Benjamin 
Godfrey, M.D., F.R.A.S., etc. London: J. and A. 
Churchill. 1872. 
Those persons who like to take their science wrapped 
up in a quantity of light gossip like a child’s powder in 
a spoonful of jam, may find in this “popular” treatise 
upon the affections of the hair an opportunity of pur¬ 
suing their “ studies,” and at the same time of relieving 
their minds from more severe work by a little pleasant 
reading. In dealing with the subject in hand the au¬ 
thor has not confined himself to one branch of it, nor to< 
one country or age. He says, “ I have culled flowers and 
fruit from the Biblo, tKo Zend. Avesla, and. the Talmud. 
I have gathered sheaves from the Greeks, the Humans 
and the Egyptians, and have gleaned stray ears of com 
from every harvest-field where my feet have trod.” 
With this wide range, and moved to pity by the wants 
of the present day,—especially as pointed out in a letter 
to the Lancet , wherein it was estimated that one person* 
in ten of any large assembly in this country was bald, 
to a greater or less degree,—the author has written 
the. little volume before us, which he has somewhat, 
characteristically dedicated to the “ heads of Great 
Britain.” 
We must confess that making all due allowance for 
the fact that the beauties of the hair have often been 
sung by poets, and that in what are now-a-days called 
popular scientific works, the “science” is frequently 
diluted or “ popularized” by a large proportion of rhap¬ 
sodical writing, we were hardly prepared for the opening 
sentences. After an appropriate poetical quotation, the- 
author breaks out into a gush of eloquence, or poetry, 
or—something, sufficient to take one’s breath away i 
But let him speak for himself. 
“ If Nature be left alone, how exquisitely does she do- 
her work ! Whether we gaze upon the pensile twigs of 
the weeping willow, or the long, flowing, curled and 
wavy hair of one of her children, how perfect and how 
free! Beautiful in her simplicity, and magnificent in 
her plenitude. The soft down of the peach, reflected 
upon the head of the infant, the ripple of the stream 
mirrored upon the wavy lock of childhood, or the au¬ 
tumnal hue of the dying leaf, living upon the grey hair 
of the aged man, all speak in accents powerful to the 
reflective mind. How soon was the puerile innocence of 
Eden spoilt, when the tree of knowledge was tasted L 
The glow of health vanished like a sunbeam, the pri¬ 
meval joy passed away like a shadow, and weeds and 
sorrow were left behind,” “ etc. etc.” 
Indeed, it is quite amusing to notice the ingenuity 
with which he frequently avoids calling a spade a spade. 
‘ Nature’s hirsute beauty,’ ‘ streaming tresses,’ ‘ lovely’ 
or ‘ glossy locks,’ ‘ crinal glory,’ ‘ curly pate,’ ‘ threads- 
of gold,’ are all synonyms of hair, backed up by frequent 
‘comate’ coverings, materials, structures, wonders, and 
filaments. A bald head is a ‘ sterile cranium;’ a hair in 
a wrong place is a ‘ hirsute intruder,’ Mr. Erasmus- 
Wilson is spoken of in connection with ‘ philocomate- 
writers;’ while such words as ‘ epilation’ and ‘ depila- 
tion,’ ‘ aberuncate,’ ‘ avulsion,’ and ‘ chromatogenous,’ 
however familiar to scientific men, will send a fair pro¬ 
portion of “ popular” readers to the dictionaries. 
But it would be unfair to dwell only on these pecu¬ 
liarities. After the first novelty has worn off, they may 
not appear so striking. At any rate, as the author evi¬ 
dently seeks to secure variety by making the reader 
sometimes laugh with him, he will, perhaps, not mind if 
once now and then the laugh is at him. In twenty 
chapters the author discusses the anatomy and physiology 
of the hair, its superabundance or deficiency, the different 
diseases which affect it and their remedies, its colours, 
natural and artificial, and winds up with a rather specu¬ 
lative chapter on the beard. Each subject is introduced 
by pleasantly-told illustrations from ancient and modem 
sources. Some of these stories—and we are sorry to 
say, particularly those whose age might demand our 
veneration—require to be taken cum grano salis, in fact, 
some people may think a pailful would not be too much 
but, as a rule, they will not be without interest to the; 
pharmacist, who is often expected to know a little about, 
everybody and everything. A great deal of practical 
