March 23, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
771 
pjirniuttcutol Journal. 
-♦- - 
SATURDAY , MARCH 23, 1S72. 
Communications for this Journal, and boohs for review, etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from .Member s and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
ridge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square . TF.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London, JF. Envelopes indorsed u Fharm. Journ.” 
POISONING BY MISADVENTURE. 
The terrible case in Devonshire, which occurred 
last July, and for which a chemist’s assistant has 
lately been tried for manslaughter, is one of the 
most melancholy proofs' ever brought before the 
public that every man who presumes to compound 
medicines should possess a competent knowledge 
of the business he undertakes. Far be it from 
us to add one pang to the anguish which this young 
man must undoubtedly suffer from having even in¬ 
nocently caused the death of a fellow-creature; but 
we feel it to be the duty of this Journal—a Journal 
specially designed to watch over the interests and 
guide, as far as may be, the education and conduct 
of pharmacists—to point to the blots which disfigure 
our profession, and to hold up such cases as that now 
before us as danger-signals to our brethren. A full 
report of the trial will be found in another page of 
our present issue. Briefly stated, it appears that an 
invalid, having some knowledge of drugs, wrote a 
prescription for a mixture containing, as one of its 
ingredients, half a drachm of solution of muriate of 
morphia, of which half was to be taken for a dose. 
This prescription was taken to the shop of a 
chemist, where, the master being absent tluougli ill¬ 
ness, it fell into the hands of his brother, who was 
assisting in the business. Instead of thirty minims 
of solution, twenty grains of solid muriate of morphia 
were put into the mixture ; before intimation of the 
error could be conveyed to the invalid he had swal¬ 
lowed his dose, and, notwithstanding the combined 
efforts of three medical men to save him, he died in 
a few hours. 
The explanation given by the learned Counsel 
who defended the accused was, that the writing 
being illegible, the abbreviation of the word solution 
—“ sol.”—was read by the dispenser as “ saland, 
accordingly he construed it as salt of muriate of 
morphia ; that “ solutio morpliise muriatis ” was an 
improper term for a prescriber to use, the prepara¬ 
tion intended being correctly called “ liquor morphia; 
muriatis.” On this plea the jury, after two hours’ 
consideration, brought in a verdict of acquittal. 
Now, it is at this point that our duty begins. It 
is quite true that prescribers sometimes write indis¬ 
tinctly. It is true also that the Latin name given 
to the article in the Pharmacopoeia is “liquor; ” hut 
immediately under the Latin name in the Pharma¬ 
copoeia the English title, “ solution of liydrochlorate 
of morphia ” appears. Over and over again we have 
seen the words, “ sol. morph, mur.” in a physician’s 
prescription, but we never saw “ sal morpliise mu¬ 
riatis ” written in a prescription. 
We venture to say that any candidate for the 
Minor Examination of the Pharmaceutical Society 
dispensing before the Board a prescription in which 
the “o” in “sol” had even the semblance of ail 
“a,” with the solid muriate, would be rejected as a 
person unfit to be trusted to compound medicines, 
and should never be employed by any master who 
holds the lives of his customers as a precious charge 
in his keeping. Again, without trenching on the 
province of the physician, the Board of Examiners 
insist on that knowledge of doses which would cer¬ 
tainly prevent any man from sending out a mixture 
with ten grains of morphia in each dose, and this 
lamentable accident is an overwhelming proof of the 
necessity of their doing so. 
No man can be positively proof against misad¬ 
venture, and we have been reluctantly compelled to 
make these observations,—compelled alike by the 
safety of the public and the safety, credit and com¬ 
fort of our brethren, for this is a case which throws 
doubt on us all. 
The moral appears to us to be, that chemists 
should not only be themselves duly qualified, but 
should insist that every person entrusted by them to 
dispense medicine should he qualified also, if not by 
examination, at least by proper tuition and practice. 
“HARMLESS” ADULTERATION. 
The encouraging remarks recently offered by 
Mr. Muntz, in regard to the impossibility of his 
proposed Adulteration Act being made use of to 
interfere with any one who chose to mix beans with 
coffee, or water with milk, would seem to have ope¬ 
rated already as a stimulus to enterprise in that 
direction, if we may judge from the somewhat am¬ 
biguous terms of the following advertisement, which 
the Grocer reproduces from a daily contemporary. 
P ARTNERSHIP or otherwise.—To Wholesale Gro¬ 
cers and others.—A German gentleman, having 
invented a process of imparting to inferior kinds of coffee 
the aroma and strength of the very best brands, and at 
the same time removing all detrimental substances from 
the beans, wishes either to dispose of the same or to 
find a partner with not less than £4000. Profits may be 
estimated at 50 per cent. For interview, address, etc. 
Under the most favourable interpretation, it is 
evident that, by means of this “invention, “infe¬ 
rior kinds of coffee” are to be passed off for the 
“very best brands;” but the estimate that the 
