March 23, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
779 
taken out of the bottle ?—I should say that there was 
about half an ounce. 
A cook in the employ of the prosecutor gave evidence 
in reference to some threats that the prisoner had spoken 
in her hearing against her master. 
The prisoner made no defence, and was remanded. 
A Child accidentally Poisoned. 
The Liverpool Borough Coroner held an inquest on 
’Monday upon the body of a male child, fourteen days 
■old, the son of Robert Stirling Iddeson, a clerk at the 
General Post-office, who lives at 283, Upper Parliament 
Street. It appeared that on the 13th inst. the deceased 
was suffering from flatulency, and Dr. Bailey, who was 
attending upon Mrs. Iddeson, ordered that doses of dill- 
water should he administered. That same evening Mrs. 
Iddeson sent the servant to a druggist’s shop (kept by a 
Mr. Cantrell) in the neighbourhood, for a pennyworth 
of the medicine prescribed. She returned with a bottle, 
a teaspoonful of the contents of which was administered to 
the deceased at about 11 o’clock. The child sank quietly 
to sleep immediately after taking the dose, and about 
half an hour afterwards began to breathe heavily, and 
turned quite black in the face. Dr. Bailey was sent for, 
and he, finding the deceased in convulsions, prescribed 
.accordingly. He subsequently returned, about noon on 
the following day, when he concluded that the deceased 
was suffering from narcotic poisoning, and galvanism 
was applied, but the child could not be roused from the 
lethargic state into which he had fallen, and died before 
the day was over. 
Dr. Somers concurred with Dr. Bailey in the opinion 
that the deceased had died from a narcotic poison. The 
latter gentleman said that when he first examined the 
bottle which had been brought from the druggist’s, soon 
after the dose was administered, it smelt of dill-water, 
but when he tried it some time afterwards that smell 
had passed away. There were two labels on the bottle, 
one over the other, one bearing the word “ Nepenthe” 
and the other “ Dill-water.” If the bottle had previously 
•contained nepenthe, although it might have been dry 
when the dill-water was put into it, the latter would 
dissolve the nepenthe encrusted on the sides, and a mix¬ 
ture would be formed which would be sufficient to poison 
the deceased. 
Elizabeth Jones, the servant who was sent for the 
medicine, said the bottle she took to Mr. Cantrell’s shop 
was quite clean, and without any label upon it. She 
also believed it was a little larger than the one produced. 
The shop was in great confusion at the time, Mr. Can¬ 
trell having only just changed his place of business. 
A woman who was present when the servant was sent 
for the dill-water, said that Mrs. Iddeson smelt at the 
bottle before giving it to the girl, and remarked that 
there had been peppermint in it. That bottle was larger 
than the one produced, and had no label on it. 
Dr. Brown, from the Royal Infirmary, said he had 
analysed the liquid in the bottle, and found that it con¬ 
tained two per cent, of opium. The mixture altogether 
was about two-fifths of the strength of laudanum. 
Mr. William Cantrell, the gentleman who supplied 
the dill-water, said that when the servant asked for it, 
he noticed that the bottle she presented had a label 
upon it, marked “Nepenthe,” and he also noticed that 
the bottle was somewhat soiled, as if from disuse. The 
servant, however, assured him that it was quite clean, 
and, on the strength of that assertion, he supplied her 
with the dill-water, although he perceived, after he had 
put the liquor into it, that the whole became slightly 
tinged with a light brown colour. It was no part of his 
duty, or the duty of any chemist, to wash the bottles 
that were presented for the reception of drugs, and he 
.felt satisfied from the assurance of the servant, that the 
bottle had been cleaned and prepared to receive the dill- 
water. 
The jury, in returning a verdict of “died from an 
opiate poison administered in mistake for a prescribed 
medicine called dill-water,” presented “ that they con¬ 
sidered the chemist had used a dirty bottle (not being 
the one taken to him) which had at some time contained 
an opiate, and that the remains or deposit of such opiate 
had caused the dill-water sold to be discoloured and 
affected so as to contain two per cent, of opium. They 
attribute the use of the old bottle by the chemist to the 
hurry and confusion consequent upon the recent removal 
of his business ; and, whilst considering him open to re¬ 
mark for this want of caution, they would suggest that 
the practice of using old bottles uncleaned should be dis¬ 
continued altogether.” 
Poisoning by Vermin Killer. 
On Friday, March 8th, an inquest was held at the 
Board Room, Mount Street, G-rosvenor Square, on the 
body of Charles Thompson, aged thirty-nine, who com¬ 
mitted suicide by taking vermin powder, at No. 26, 
Robert Street, under the following circumstances :—The 
deceased lodged at the above address, and at half-past 
eight Mrs. Godly, the landlady, took up a letter, which 
she pushed under the door. Within an hour after he 
called out for assistance and asked for a doctor. He 
said he had taken some vermin killer, and before medical 
aid could be procured life was extinct. Dr. W. Bloxam 
said the cause of death was poisoning by strychnia. 
Evidence was then given showing that deceased had lost 
money at the Stockton steeple races, that he was worried 
very much about three illegitimate children, also that he 
was interested in the Tichborne bonds, and it is supposed 
that the letter given to him contained information of the 
foreman’s intimation on the previous day, the effect of 
which caused him to commit the act. Verdict, “ Suicide 
while in an unsound state of mind, brought on by an 
accumulation of misfortunes.” 
Inorganic Chemistry. By the late George Wilson, 
M.D., F.R.S.E. Revised and enlarged by H. G. 
Madan, M.A. 
‘ Wilson’s Chemistry’ revised is more acceptable than 
‘Wilson’s Chemistry’ enlarged. In 1858, two hundred 
and sixty pages sufficed for the statement of the funda¬ 
mental laws of chemistry and a description of the more 
remarkable inorganic compounds; in 1871, just twice 
two hundred and sixty are considered to be necessary for 
the purpose. Seventy pages served Wilson for the 
chemistry of the metals; one hundred and fifty are occu¬ 
pied by the metallic elements in the present edition. 
And yet when we come to examine into the character of 
the additions, we are not less pleased with them than with 
the alterations. The authoress of a memoir of George 
Wilson tells us that this text-book was written to dicta¬ 
tion by a sister in the summer of 1849, in the “ Sleepy 
Hollow” of Momingside. Continued illness compelled 
the abandonment of the professor’s spring classes, and 
a volume for ‘ Chambers’s Educational Course ’ was un¬ 
dertaken as the only work of which he was capable at 
the time, idleness being to him an impossibility. He was 
quite unable to hold a pen for months, and dictated its 
pages while pacing the room, compressed lips indicating 
pain that could scarcely be endured. These circum¬ 
stances may, perhaps, account for a certain amount of 
superficiality which characterized a work otherwise com¬ 
plete and charmingly written. Add to this that gene¬ 
ralizations in chemistry have increased in extent and 
number, and chemical facts multiplied enormously in the 
past twenty years, and we have what we believe to be 
the true explanation of the thinness of the book in 1850 
and its thickness in 1872. 
One-third of the volume now published is devoted to 
