ii4 
Bacterial  Poisoning  by  Medicines. 
(Am.  Jour.  Phariru 
{      March,  1890. 
and  the  symptoms  so  much  resembled  those  caused  by  an  irritant 
poison,  that  the  physician  who  had  been  called  in  pronounced  it  a 
case  of  poisoning.  The  patient  was  finally  brought  around  all  right, 
but  the  druggist  was  charged  with  having  made  a  mistake,  and 
dispensed  some  poison  in  place  of  the  quinine.  He  however,  was  posi- 
tive that  the  mixture  had  been  dispensed  as  ordered  and  that  he  was 
not  responsible  for  the  patient's  sickness.  To  determine  if  possible 
the  cause  of  the  trouble  the  remainder  of  the  mixture  was  forwarded 
to  me,  with  the  request  to  give  it  a  thorough  examination. 
The  fluid  presented  the  usual  appearance  of  whiskey  and  on  dilut- 
ing with  water  showed  the  characteristic  fluoresence  of  quinine. 
After  evaporating  the  alcohol  the  solution  gave  a  deep  green  color 
(thalleioquin)  with  chlorine  water  and  ammonia.  This  was  suffi- 
cient to  prove  the  presence  of  quinine,  and  to  show  at  least  that 
nothing  had  been  substituted  for  it.  However,  in  the  bottom  of  the 
bottle  there  appeared  a  dark,  slimy-looking  sediment,  which  failed 
to  dissolve  on  shaking.  This  showed  that  something  must  be  wrong 
as  of  course  quinine  should  be  freely  soluble  in  a  menstruum  con- 
taining so  large  a  percentage  of  alcohol  as  whiskey  does. 
On  removing  some  of  this  sediment  and  examining  under  the 
microscope,  it  was  found  to  consist  almost  entirely  of  micro-organisms, 
with  a  lew  particles  of  woody  matter  which  had  served  as  nuclei  for 
the  formation  of  many  of  the  colonies.  Like  crystals,  these  growths 
prefer  small  points  to  start  from,  not  liking  to  begin  operation  on  a 
smooth  surface.  Wherever  a  piece  of  woody  matter  appeared  in 
the  liquid,  it  furnished  the  foundation  for  a  large  community  of  these 
bacteria,  much  larger  than  those  without  the  nuclei.  The  other  colo- 
nies being  formed  later,  did  not  have  time  to  attain  as  large  a  size 
as  the  first  ones.  As  they  were  all  dead  when  received,  it  was 
impossible  to  estimate  their  number  by  the  usual  method  of  culti- 
vating on  plates  in  gelatin,  so  the  following  method  was  used.  The 
liquid  was  shaken  up  first,  then  one  minim  placed  on  the  slide  of  the 
microscope,  and  the  groups  counted  on  a  fraction  of  the  field.  This 
gave  one  hundred  groups,  and  only  allowing  the  small  number  of 
one  hundred  individuals  to .  each  colony,  it  would  make  10,000  in 
every  minim,  or  150,000  to  each  cubic  centimeter.  Of  course  this  is 
only  approximate,  and  the  method  is  not  recommended  for  strictly 
accurate  work,  but  the  result  was  purposely  placed  at  the  lowest 
rather  than  the  highest  possible  figure.    Even  at  this  rate  a  table- 
