NEW PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS. 
149 
bit him whilst he was picking up a few bits of coal. It 
caused his hand to bleed very much, and he well-w T ashed and 
poulticed it every night. The witness went on to state that 
he prescribed for him the usual treatment, but the deceased 
was totally unable to take any fluid; a small quantity of 
nourishment was given to him by giving him bread soaked 
in milk or tea. Excitement or a gust of air brought on a 
convulsive muscular action of the throat and face, nor could 
he bear to lie in bed without complaining of a suffocating 
sensation. During the whole of Saturday night he was 
getting in and out of bed, frothing at the mouth, and spitting 
such a quantity of saliva that it formed quite a pool upon 
the floor. Mr. White went on to say that the symptoms ex¬ 
hibited all the signs of confirmed hydrophobia, and that the 
deceased died from that cause. He had ascertained that the 
cat was killed by some men in the Dowlais Yard, but was 
informed that a cat and dog, belonging to the widow, had 
both licked the blood and saliva from the deceased. 
P. C. Hodgson then received strict orders to see that the 
animals were destroyed. 
The jury after a short consultation returned a verdict 
“ That the deceased died from hydrophobia, caused by the 
bite of a cat.” 
The other patients are under medical treatment, one of 
them, by the advice of Sir Benjamin Brodie, having had the 
wound received from the cat completely cut out. 
NEW PHARMACEUTICAL PREPARATIONS. 
It is a fact well known to those engaged in the practice of 
medicine, that many of our most active drugs, as well as 
their preparations, produce when administered very variable 
results ; the same drug, or its preparation, failing to exercise 
any influence on a patient, and at other times developing 
even distressing symptoms. Without passing a general 
condemnation on drugs of the best quality, and the pharma- 
copceial preparations manufactured from them, we believe 
that the discordant results in question arise from the variable 
quantities of the active principles necessarily present in such 
drugs and their preparations. For example, we are informed, 
on a reliable authority, that both colchicum seeds and cormus 
contain their active principle in such diverse proportion, that 
it is frequently necessary to administer double doses of one 
