March 23, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
777 
it. Then the largeness of the dose ought to have at¬ 
tracted his attention, and made him more careful. Then 
again there was the direction to shake the bottle. Now, 
if he had used the solution, no shaking would have been 
required; why, therefore, should he put the label on the 
bottle “ to he shaken ?” Another matter for your notice 
is, that he gave no caution to the person who took the 
medicine away as to the magnitude of the dose, and the 
colour being the same as if it had been correctly pre¬ 
pared, no suspicion would he raised in the mind of the 
patient who took it. Another material point was this : 
the prisoner put a notice on the bottle, “ One-half to be 
ha,ve a common knowledge on this matter, which che¬ 
mists could not. When the prisoner found out through 
I)r. Atkins that he had given an overdose, he did every¬ 
thing he could to remedy his mistake, and he submitted 
there was no evidence of such criminal negligence as 
would make this young man liable. It was laid down 
by Lord Ellenborough that to substantiate a charge of 
manslaughter the prisoner must have been guilty of cri¬ 
minal misconduct, arising’ either from the grossest igno¬ 
rance or the most criminal inattention. Of course it 
would be for the jury in the case to say whether gross 
ignorance or criminal or felonious inattention had been 
taken,” so that his attention must, at the same time, have j brought home to the accused, hut he respectfully sub- 
been called to the large amount of morphia that would mitted that it had not. The fact that the prisoner had 
be taken. If the prosecution had to allege further evi- been tempted to destroy the prescription and the bottle, 
dence of negligence, I think I am entitled to say this, and had refused, negatived the proposition of any felo- 
that it was not until he applied his mind to the prescrip¬ 
tion, directly after he had made it up, that he found out 
he had made up a dose of a' dangerous character. After 
the prisoner discovered his mistake, no doubt he did all 
he could. He sent for Dr. Mackenzie to go and see the 
deceased; he sent Dr. Atkins, and he sent the boy with 
another bottle containing the proper medicine. But all 
this was after he had made the fatal mistake. That, 
gentlemen, is briefly the case I have to lay before you 
on behalf of the prosecution. I shall endeavour as far 
as I can, in conducting this case, to bring out all the 
facts, which are few and simple. When you have heard 
the witnesses whom I shall call, I shall ask you to return, 
as I have already said, such a verdict as commends itself 
to your judgment, and as you believe in your consciences 
to be right and proper. 
The learned counsel called witnesses, who deposed to 
the facts opened. 
Mr. Cole, in addressing the jury for the prisoner, 
said,—There was no doubt the unfortunate gentleman 
lost his life through a mistake made by the prisoner. 
There was no dispute about the facts. It was a sad 
mistake, but it would, on the other hand, be very sad if 
a young man were to be convicted of this serious crimi¬ 
nal offence for what, he should submit, was merely a 
mistake. Before the jury could find the prisoner guilty 
of manslaughter, they must be satisfied that he had been 
guilty of gross and criminal negligence, and could they 
say that in this case that had been made out ? Let them 
The prescription sent to the pri- 
up was not written by an ordinary 
medical man, and was not written in the ordinary or 
proper language. The word “sol,” from which the 
whole mistake arose, was an improper phrase, and it 
was through this that the fatal blunder arose. The un¬ 
fortunate deceased had, therefore, conduced to his own 
death by the manner in which the prescription was 
written. It was a sad thing in these days of common 
sense that medical men would write ther prescriptions 
in this dog Latin, where the mistaking a single letter 
look at the facts 
soner to be made 
might, as in this case, cause the loss of a life. It was 
time this sort of thing was got rid of. It was, in short, 
a wonder that more lives were not lost through this 
stupid and wretched practice, which was adopted by 
educated gentlemen without any earthly purpose being- 
served by it. If he had anything to do with legislation, 
he would make it criminal for any medical gentleman to 
use this dog Latin, and every one should be bound to 
write his prescriptions in good common Saxon English. 
The subject, he hoped, would be taken up, and this sys¬ 
tem of quackery and mystery put an end to. The pri¬ 
soner, the learned counsel went on to contend, was per¬ 
fectly competent to compound drugs, but he did not 
mous misconduct, for if he had destroyed them he could 
not have been convicted of any offence, whatever suspi¬ 
cion might have attached to him. The learned counsel, 
in continuation, asked for an acquittal, and observed 
that the prisoner felt most deeply the affliction which 
he had brought on the lady who had that day appeared 
in the witness box. Remorse for his fatal mistake he 
must ever feel; but he asked them not to add to an 
already sufficient punishment for that mistake by find¬ 
ing a verdict against him. 
His Lordship, in summing up the case, said the pri¬ 
soner was proved to have caused the death of the de¬ 
ceased by having misread the prescription, and put up a 
dose of medicine strong enough to kill three or four 
times over ; and the question for the jury was whether 
his conduct was such as to make him the proper object 
of punishment. They could not find him guilty unless 
they were satisfied that the death of Mr. Wall was 
caused by criminal ignorance, or negligence, or a com¬ 
bination of both. If they found that the mistake he 
made was one which might happen to any ordinarily 
careful j^erson, without its being an imputation upon 
his good character for carefulness, or that it resulted 
from a certain extent of ignorance, but not such as to 
make it criminal, they would not find him guilty. It 
was impossible to say what was the precise difference 
between negligence and ignorance that was criminal 
and that which was not. All that could be done was to 
leave the matter for the jury to apply their good sense 
to it. If they felt that the ignorance or negligence dis¬ 
played, or both combined, was venial, and not such as 
called for punishment, they ought to acquit the pri¬ 
soner; but if his conduct was such as ought to be 
punished, even if it had not resulted in Mr. Wall’s death, 
then they would find him guilty. He might illustrate 
what he had said in many ways, but he could give them 
no other definition of the term “culpable negligence.” 
It was not enough that a man displayed some degree of 
ignorance, something short of perfect knowledge. That 
would be to say that a man should be punished for 
a man. No human being was perfect either in 
or in care. Therefore there was a certain 
amount of want of knowledge and care which was not 
punishable ; and before they convicted the prisoner they 
must be satisfied that such an amount had been exhi¬ 
bited as in their consciences they felt to be culpable and 
criminal and deserving of punishment. The mistake 
the prisoner seemed to have made was this: That he 
read the word or syllable “sol” as though it were 
“sal.” That was the first thing he did. He (the 
learned Judge) did certainly concur most heartily with 
what Mr. Cole said as to the impropriety of gentlemen 
writing these important documents in the slovenly way 
being 
o 
knowledge 
think it was fair to make him responsible for a know- they did. I should be heartily glad, he said, if they 
ledge of the effects of any prescription which he might 
make up. He did not at all agree in the proposition that 
the prisoner ought to have known that the dose which he 
made up was a fatal one; and it would be idle and un¬ 
desirable to expect chemists and their assistants to know 
the effects of everything they made up. Doctors would 
could be made to write them in legible English, and at 
full length. The only way I can account for the pre¬ 
sent practice is that doctors do much the same thing as 
certain members of our profession do, who write ille¬ 
gible opinions, when probably the motive at bottom is 
that people should suppose they have so much to do 
