174 
professor taylor’s report on poisoning. 
the following day, and the liquid remaining in the bottle was found to he wine of colchi- 
cum, which had been sold by mistake. The coroner’s jury dismissed the druggist with 
a reprimand.^ 
The sale of oxalic acid, nitre, and other saline compounds of a noxious kind, for 
Epsom salts, has been a frequent cause of death. The facts of the subjoined case, which 
occurred in December, 1863, at Oswestry, were communicated to me by the medical 
gentleman who was called to see the deceased :— 
The deceased applied to a druggist for some Epsom salts. He was served with eight 
packets. One of them, equivalent to an ounce in weight, he mixed in water, and swal¬ 
lowed about nine o’clock in the morning. He died under symptoms of irritant poison¬ 
ing in less than three hours. The packets were labelled “Purified Epsom Salts;” but 
when examined they were found to contain nitrate of potash in powder. The nitre had 
caused death, with the usual symptoms of irritant poisoning. It was admitted at the 
inquest that the powdered nitre and Epsom salts were kept in drawers close to each 
other, and thus the mistake had arisen. The boy who made the mistake was seventeen 
years of age. The verdict was to the effect that the man had been poisoned by nitre ; 
but the druggist, whose business was thus carelessly conducted, was exonerated from all 
blame. 
A man went into a druggist’s shop in London to purchase two ounces of Epsom salts. 
Hearing they had a taste, he asked the apprentice who supplied him to exchange them 
for tasteless salts (Eochelle salt). An exchange was made, and the man swallowed an 
ounce of the substance which had been given to him. He was seized with symptoms of 
irritant poisoning, and died after nine days, suffering in the meantime from inflamma¬ 
tion of the stomach and bowels. It was found that the apprentice had supplied him 
with tartaric acid, in place of the tartrate of potash and soda. The druggist, who 
admitted the mistake, was subsequently tried on a charge of manslaughter. It was con¬ 
tended in the defence, that the drug had been supplied in error and by mistake, and not 
with that gross and culpable negligence which would constitute the crime of man¬ 
slaughter. The jury acquitted hinr.f 
Several cases have come to my knowledge in which oxalic acid has been retailed in 
place of Epsom salts. In one of them, which occurred in London some years since, a 
man was sent to the shop of a respectable druggist for four ounce-packets of Epsom 
salts. He was served with four packets, labelled as usual “ Purified Epsom Salts.” In 
the evening, the gentleman who had sent for the salts took the contents of one of these 
packets; he was seized with the usual symptoms of poisoning by oxalic acid, and died 
in a few hours. I examined the contents of the stomach, and found oxalic acid therein, 
and I also found that the three unopened packets contained oxalic acid, labelled as above 
described. 
In another instance in which I was consulted, a gentleman on a visit to London 
entered a shop of a respectable druggist, and asked for an ounce and a half of Dinne- 
ford’s fluid magnesia. The druggist poured a liquid from a bottle into a glass, but when 
the applicant took a portion of it into his mouth, he found that it was some caustic 
burning fluid. On looking at the bottle, he saw that it was labelled “ Burnett’s Disin¬ 
fecting Fluid.” He subsequently suffered from severe pain and vomiting ; and medical 
men who saw him stated that his symptoms were such as Burnett’s fluid (chloride of 
zinc) would produce. He recovered after nine days, and brought an action against the 
druggist, in consequence of his having negligently given him an irritant poison in place 
of medicine. The defendant denied having given him Burnett’s fluid, which he did not 
keep, although he kept chloride of zinc in his shop, and said that he had poured out a 
solution of Epsom salts. This would not, however, have accounted for the symptoms 
from which the plaintiff had suffered. A verdict, with £75 damages, was returned against 
the druggist.^ Owing to similar mistakes, and chiefly owing to fluid magnesia and dis¬ 
infecting fluid being sold in similar bottles with somewhat similar labels, several lives 
have been destroyed. 
* Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, February, 1859, p. 438. 
t The case of the Queen against Watkins, Central Criminal Court, January, 1815. See 
also Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, February, 1845, p. 370, 
I Richards v. Cocking, Guildhall, July, 1858. See Pharmaceutical Journal and Transac¬ 
tions, August, 1858, p. 139. 
