AmjSyfifg6.arm-}      Morphine  in  To xico logical  Cases.  375 
highly  complicated  action  of  decomposition  of  an  animal 
body. 
B.  Tamba's  experiments,  that  ptomaines  have  not  any 
deleterious  effects  upon  the  most  characteristic  morphine 
reactions,  have  been  fully  verified.   (See  IV,  V,  VIII.) 
It  is,  however,  desirable  to  epitomize  some  notes  on  this  subject, 
since  the  conditions  requiring  a  sound  judgment,  as  well  as  self- 
consciousness  and  ability,  are  seldom  of  greater  importance  than 
where  chemical  reactions  have  to  be  applied  in  toxicological  cases. 
A  misunderstanding  of  a  fact  or  of  an  occurrence  of  any  kind,  lack 
of  reasoning,  lack  of  honesty  of  purpose,  sometimes,  may  jeopardize 
life,  liberty  and  the  good  name  of  any  citizen. 
I  learn  at  the  time  that  this  paper  is  going  to  press  that  ex-Coroners  Butler 
and  Betting er,  with  their  two  clerks,  Bird  and  Benbing,  were  each  sen- 
tenced to  eighteen  months  in  the  House  of  Correction  in  Detroit,  Mich. 
The  quartet  were  convicted  of  conspiring  to  defraud  the  county  by  sub- 
mitting bills  for  inquests  which  never  took  place. 
A  certain  Mrs.  E.  McDermoth  died  from  poisoning — was  stated  elsewhere. 
The  county  physician  "found"  traces  of  poison,  probably  morphine. 
Conjectures  and  suppositions  instead  of  observations  of  facts. 
Another  county  physician  reported  :  The  potion  given  the  baby  was  a 
tincture  of  opium;  the  custom  is  to  shake  before  using,  but  in  this  instance 
(a  poisoning  b}^  morphine)  that  was  neglected.    The  drug  rose  to  the  top. 
All  of  this  testimony  was  paid  for  and  no  questions  asked. 
I  refer  the  reader  to  an  article  in  the  Bulletin  of  Pharmacy  for  January, 
1895,  "  le  Chimiste  malgre  lui,"  where  it  is  advocated  that  the  pharmaceu- 
tical or  analytical  chemist,  with  a  well-conducted  laboratory,  is  the  proper 
man  in  the  proper  place,  in  a  toxicological  case,  versus  the  annual  or  bien- 
nial county  physician,  with  hardly  any  laboratory  practice. 
III.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  how  important  a  field  of  labor  this  is, 
and  how  desirable  to  have  all  the  positive  evidence  of  our  ability  to 
recover  morphine  from  putrefying  animal  matter,  placed  on  record. 
The  consequence  of  the  presence  of  ptomaines,  in  this  line  of 
work,  must  not  be  overestimated.  Ogier  and  Ilinovici  found  that 
none  of  the  ptomaines,  isolated  by  ethyl  ether  or  chloroform  from  a 
putrefied  cadaver,  gave  the  blue  color  reaction  with  ferric  chloride, 
as  morphine  does.  ("  Real  Encyclopaedia  der  Pharmacie."  By 
Geissler  and  Moeller,  VIII,  p.  387.)  Graebener  states  that  such 
characteristic  reactions  as  we  possess  for  morphine  will  succeed 
even  in  the  presence  of  ptomaines.    (Dragendorff,  Ermittelung  von 
