GOLD-DUST AND IRON-PILINGS AS ANTIDOTES. 443 
was warned by the burning taste of the fluid, that he taken 
something wrong; in a few minutes he was seized with the 
most violent, burning pain in the stomach, and along the line 
of the oesophagus. A physician was sent for, who found on 
his arrival, that a saturated solution of corrosive sublimate, in 
whiskey, had been taken instead of cider. Albumen was 
freely administered, in spite of which the symptoms grew 
more violent, and death ensued on the third day. The mis- 
take originated in the heedlessness of a servant, who after 
using the corrosive solution for the purpose of cleansing bed- 
steads, had carried the bottle in which it was contained to the 
bar, and placed it on the shelf where the cider was kept. 
Now, in all cases similar to the one just stated, in which a so- 
lution of mercury was swallowed in a very concentrated state, 
it would be proper to administer, immediately, a draught of 
water sufficient to destroy its caustic properties, and then to 
give the antidote as soon as it can be obtained. We would 
biting the practice of physic unless under the authority of a diploma, if the 
pretext of keeping an apothecary shop is always a ready means of evading 
them ? The importance of having suitable persons appointed to inspect 
the drugs sold in our market is obvious; we have inspectors of flour and 
tobacco, of the excellence of which the dealer, as well as the consumer, is 
a fair judge, and yet medicines, the character of which none but a good 
chemist can determine, are permitted to pass from hand to hand, and to 
be given in the conflict between life and death, without any security that 
they are calculated to meet the indication for which they are used, or their 
having come under the eye of any one competent to judge of their qualities. 
The fact is notorious, that large sums are annually made by the manu- 
facture of adulterated chemicals, and it is equally well known to the pro- 
fession, that two-thirds of the medicine sold in our drug stores is utterly 
worthless : without some system of inspection, our city will become the 
vortex for drugs which have been rejected in other markets. The merest 
culler and vender of simples is permitted to keep and sell the most deadly 
poisons, and is consequently, at all times, the ready accomplice of any 
caitiff wretch who may choose to procure them with criminal intent. In 
a notorious case of trial for homicide, by poisoning, which came before 
our criminal court a few years since, it was impossible to ascertain from 
whence the poison had been procured. 
