1042 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[June 22, 1872. 
plain with you, the eyes of the police are upon you. j 
have some of the medicine, which contains a sediment, 
and I intend putting it under a microscope. There has 
been a good deal of amateur doctoring going on in East 
Greenwich lately. This is a serious case, and I cannot 
screen you.” To this plaintiff said he replied, “ Really, 
Dr. Forsyth, you must he in error. All that I know is, 
a female called at my shop on Tuesday, suffering from 
diarrhoea through taking aloes (‘ pilacotia ’), and I 
gave her a bottle of mixture, and she went away. She 
subsequently called with her mother, a Mrs. Green, and 
stated that the relaxation had ceased, but she was suf¬ 
fering from pains in her loins and bearing down, and 
after referring to Dr. Lee’s book on the practice of mid¬ 
wifery, and suspecting from the symptoms wdiat was the 
matter, I prescribed for her from that work, and charged 
her Is. 2>d. for it, and told her, with rest, she would be 
better.” It appeared that afterwards, meeting Dr. For¬ 
syth in the street, the plaintiff asked him if he intended 
apologizing for the charge he had made against him, to 
which the defendant replied, “No, not I. I’ve got you 
now, and before I’ve done with you I’ll see you leave 
Greenwich ; you know you are not a qualified man to 
supply medicines, and I’ll make you smart for it.” 
In cross-examination the plaintiff denied that the 
w r ords were, “I’ve just come from a woman who says 
you have given her something to procure abortion.” He 
admitted that he had given a Mrs. Sargeant a lotion for 
her legs, and that it contained prussic acid, and she had 
taken it instead of her medicine; and several doctors, 
including the defendant, were afterwards in attendance 
upon her. He had given a woman solution of strychnine 
to kill bugs, and it required water to be mixed with it 
before using it, but he could not undertake to say he had 
given written instructions as to how much water was to be 
mixed with it. He was sure he had told her verbally 
how to mix it. Upon being asked why he sold such 
things, he said he did so in self-defence, as other chemists 
did it. Upon being asked by Mr. Digby Seymour what 
“pilacotia” pills were, he replied, the refuse aloes of 
a chemist’s shop which could not be used in finer phar¬ 
macy. He denied that he was aware that “pilacotia” 
was used by the lower order of persons to procure abor¬ 
tion, but he know that if given to a woman far ad- 
advanced in pregnancy, such pills had a tendency to 
bring on premature labour. 
Dr. Saundry was called to corroborate the plaintiff as 
to the w r ords of the slander ; and a police-inspector was 
called to prove that the defendant was surgeon to the 
police force, and that he had spoken to the defendant, 
who, upon his advice, had gone to the police magis¬ 
trate. 
The defendant denied that he had made use of the 
words imputed to him, but stated he met the plaintiff 
and Dr. Saundry as they had mentioned, and upbraided 
the plaintiff, saying that he had been called to see a 
woman who was very ill, and she had told him that she 
having had two children, and being again in the family¬ 
way was desirous of procuring abortion, and went with 
two other women to buy some “pilacotia.” One of 
them bought a pennyworth, which was divided among 
the three. The object not being accomplished, she pur¬ 
chased a pennyworth for herself, and took it, and this 
produced diarrhoea. She then called on the plaintiff, 
and told him what she had done, and he gave her a 
draught to stop the diarrhoea. She got better and 
called on the plaintiff again, and then he gave her 
a bottle of medicine, which she said she had taken 
doses of. He then looked at the bottle, and it ap¬ 
peared to contain a solution of aloes. He examined the 
woman, and believed that her state w’as brought on by 
the taking of these aloes for the purpose of procuring 
abortion. After this statement had been made to the 
defendant, he went to see Mr. Downs, and, seeing the 
plaintiff there, followed him afterwards and made the 
statement mentioned above, fully believing that the 
woman’s statement was true. An analytical chemist 
was called to prove that the bottle produced contained 
nothing but aloes; and in an advanced stage of preg¬ 
nancy, such a mixture was like to bring about prema¬ 
ture labour. 
The plaintiff was recalled, and swore that the con¬ 
tents of the bottle produced were never sold by him 
either to the woman or anybody else. 
After Mr. Digby Seymour had summed up his evi¬ 
dence, and Mr. J. 0. Grifhts had replied on the whole 
case, 
His Lordship left it to the jury to say whether, if 
they believed the plaintiff and Dr. Saundry, there could 
be any doubt that the defendant charged the plaintiff 
with having sold medicine to procure abortion, and, as 
such a thing was a crime in this country, it would be 
slanderous to say so ; or whether they believed the de¬ 
fendant’s statement as to what he said, and, if so, his 
Lordship thought it would not amount to a slander. If 
they found for the plaintiff, then the question would 
arise as to the amount of damages ; and upon that they 
must be guided by their opinion as to whether the de¬ 
fendant acted fairly upon the information which he re¬ 
lied upon, and if he did, the damages, they might think, 
ought to be small; or whether the defendant was actu¬ 
ated in what he did, as suggested by Mr. Griffits, by the- 
fact that his practice was more or less prejudiced by the 
legitimate business of chemists who were nowadays so 
much resorted to by the poorer classes, and if he was, 
then the plaintiff would be entitled to substantial da¬ 
mages. 
The jury immediately found for the plaintiff—• 
Damages, £50 .—Abstracted from The Times. 
gfbttto. 
Lecture Note 3 for Chemical Students. By E. 
Frankland, D.C.L., F.R.S. Yol. II. Organic Che¬ 
mistry. Yan Yoorst. 1872. 
In general arrangement and in detail this new edition, 
of Dr. Franklftnd’s Lecture Notes is very much like the 
first; but valuable additions have been made relating to- 
compounds of recent discovery, especially in the sec¬ 
tions treating of the alcohols and acids. Under the- 
head of Acetylene, however, we miss two reactions of 
great importance, viz., the conversion of that hydro¬ 
carbon into benzol by polymerization, and into hydro¬ 
cyanic acid by direct combination with nitrogen. 
The Aromatic compounds are treated in this edition 
according to Kekule’s theory; but we cannot say that 
the account given of them is satisfactory or well brought 
up to the present state of knowledge. In the first place, 
with reference to the hydrocarbons, it is stated (p. 42) 
that “ the following six members of this series are* 
known, viz.: 
Pentol . . C 5 H 4 Xylol. . . C 8 H 10 
Benzol . . C 6 H G Cumol . . C 9 H 12 
Toluol . . C-H s Cymol . . C 10 H 14 .” 
Now, this list is redundant at the beginning and defi¬ 
cient at the end. Cymol is not the highest known term 
of the series : for hydrocarbons have been prepared con¬ 
taining C u H 16 , Ci 2 H 13 and C^H^, the first indeed in 
three isomeric forms, viz., C 6 H 5 .C 5 U U , C 6 H 3 .CH 3 .(C 2 H 5 ) 2 , 
and C S H 3 .(CH 3 ) 2 .C 3 II 7 ; and with regard to the so- 
called pentol C 5 H 4 , we believe we are correct in saying, 
that the most remarkable circumstance connected with 
it, and with the acid C 6 H 4 0 2 (benzenic acid) from which* 
it was said to be derived, is their non-existence. If, 
indeed, the existence of a hydrocarbon C 5 H 4 were es¬ 
tablished, and it could be shown, by its properties, to- 
be a true homologue of benzene, then the whole theory 
of the aromatic bodies at present received would fall to 
