April 20, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
851 
Cjie IHjanmttcutital Journal. 
-+-- 
SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1872. 
Communications for this Journal, and boohs for review,etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
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Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London , W. Envelopes indorsed u Fharm. Journ .” 
HOSPITAL DISPENSING. 
The report of an inquest lield this week on a 
child poisoned by the inadvertence of officials at 
the London Hospital, will recall attention to some 
defects in hospital dispensing which have before 
called for remark. In this case the evidence seemed 
to show that certain dispensing functions were en¬ 
trusted to the porter, and that he dispensed, for the 
benefit of a child, a mixture of which the soothing 
properties went on to the production of fatal nar¬ 
cosis, after the first dose. It very often happens 
in large institutions that the secondary purposes 
are of so much greater brilliancy and interest than 
the final ends for which the institution is created, 
that the lesser obscures the greater, and the means 
seem more important than the end. A hospital is 
essentially a house of cure; and even though all 
physicians may not have the robust faith of Dr. 
Quain, who announced in the Lumleian Lectures at 
the Ro} r al College of Physicians, that he had more 
faith in his drugs than in himself, yet all are accus¬ 
tomed to depend more or less upon this department 
of the hospital for the final issue of then’ efforts to 
cure. 
There is not any department of a hospital which 
is habitually so much starved as the dispensary. 
The dispenser is commonly overworked and under¬ 
paid; all sorts of devices are adopted for cutting 
down the expenditure on tins department. In many 
a hospital the Mist. Quime, unless marked ‘ special,’ 
is ordered to be made up without quinine, and the 
Mist. Sarsie is innocent of sarsaparilla bark. The 
economy which ostracizes costly drugs, extends to all 
the arrangements of the dispensary. The patients 
must bring their own bottles and gallipots; and so, 
spite of the liberal anxiety of the Medical Officer of 
the Privy Council to compel pharmaceutical chemists 
to dispense potent drugs only under very great 
precautions, and in vessels of particular shape, the 
spectacle may be observed at all the metropolitan 
hospitals, and no doubt at that to which Mr. Simon 
is attached, of little children carrying away solutions 
of atropine, strychnine, opium, and almost every 
poison under the sun, in the familiar vessels of daily 
household use. Black bottles, which yesterday held 
the family beer, become the receptacles of ‘ soap 
linimentbelladonna unguent supersedes Keiller s 
marmalade, and although the signature ‘ Poison’ is 
imposed upon the marmalade pot, it is hardly sur¬ 
prising that very awkward mistakes sometimes 
occur, and that misadventure with the medicines 
obtained from out-patient departments is among 
the most fertile sources of accidental poisoning. 
The dispenser is not always fortunate in the ac¬ 
quirements of the skilled assistance allowed him, 
and although the dispensary porter is often a very in¬ 
telligent though uneducated person, whose only 
failing is too strong an affection for methylated 
spirit and for cordial tinctures, he rubs along with 
such assistance as well as he can, and marvellously 
escapes committing manslaughter. 
It is to avoid overwhelming the dispenser with an 
amount of work which would involve affording him 
adequate skilled assistance that a small branch dis¬ 
pensary is commonly established in the casualty 
room under the management of the casualty porter. 
Here are a few antidotes to poison, mixtures against 
cough and diarrhoea, liniments and ointments. The 
arrangement is rough and ready ; it is very econo¬ 
mical and it is considered to work well. It has only 
the practical disadvantage, of which the London 
Hospital case affords an example, that the man does 
not quite understand the dangerous properties of the 
things which he handles so familiarly, and that he 
is apt to give to children what is meant only for adult 
mankind. Then an inquest follows, and a scandal. 
Let us hope that more solid results may be attained, 
and that the recommendation of the Jury may lead 
to reform. 
“ METHYLATED WHISKEY.” 
Two years ago Mr. Harry Napier Draper called 
attention to a practice prevalent in the north of 
Ireland of using as a beverage ether, prepared from 
methylated spirit.* We do not know whether the 
demand for such heterodox intoxicants has since 
increased, but to judge from what the British Medi¬ 
cal Journal reports to have been stated by Dr. 
Hodges, at the last meeting of the Cliemico-Agri¬ 
cultural Society of Ulster, there is a plentiful supply. 
He exhibited a specimen of “ whiskey” which had 
been brought to him by two men who had been in¬ 
capacitated by drinking a small portion of it at a 
public house. He found,on analysis, that it contained 
a large amount of naphtha. He has also met with 
mixtures containing sulphate of copper, cayenne: 
pepper, sulphuric acid and a little spirits of wine. 
One specimen submitted to Dr. Hodges, which he 
said was a fair specimen of the drink sold in low- 
class public houses, was composed of naphtha and 
* Phaem. Jouen., 2nd ser. rol. xi. p. 648. 
