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THE LATE TRIAL OF PALMER.
CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY.
bines,. within one district, the attributes of many places elsewhere usually constituting separate towns. Thus Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Staffordshire, and Liverpool would seem as if here united, which peculiar circumstances must materially prove inimical to public health. When the gigantic scheme of bringing an ample supply of pure water from Loch Cateran, to remedy the present defective quantity of that ele. ment most essential for promoting the salubrity of all large towns shall be accomplished, other steps in advance must be made towards effecting additional improvements. After procuring plenty of good water, the public authorities ought also to endeavour to decarbonize their polluted atmosphere; for without two such important necessities as pure air and pure water, the physical strength and mental energy of man must inevitably suffer deterioration. Now that hygienic science has taken its proper position in public estimation, those who cultivate such studies should carefully observe, not only great events, but even minute passing phenomena. To arrive at any correct inference regarding the action of varied causes upon animal existence, observers ought carefully to record every peculiar circumstance affecting the particular community about which an investigation has been commenced. Microscopic and chemical examinations are unquestionably important; but having ascertained every fact of that kind deemed expedient, other matters become sometimes even much more suggestive as to the mode in which the public health can be practically ameliorated. In all great questions, instead of looking only with a microscopic eye, the trueaphilosopher must examine the whole matter telescopically; whereby, while he avoids being mystified by minutiae, the data synthetically accumulated-so to speak-shall be judiciously grouped, and thus he will be enabled to deduce correct conclusions.. Sanitary officers should imitate those successful admirals and generals who, in battle, always gained the victory
rapidly and decidedly by breaking through an enemy’s centre, or turning their flank, rather than by out-post skirmishings. That is the right mode of proceeding ; therefore, whether treating disease, improving insalubrious habitations, or pursuing investigations affecting human health, the chief more
features of each case should be first carefully examined, whilst phases of secondary importance are neither disregarded nor
forgotten. THE LATE TRIAL OF PALMER. To Me881-8.
Nunneley, M’Donald, Herapath,
and others.
YouR evidence in the late trial tends to prove that strychnine was not administered in the case of the late J. Parsons Cook, and that the indications were those of various other disorders having spasmodic and convulsive characters, and broadly distinguished from the effects of strychnine, the exhibition of which it was, in fact, absurd to suppose. Such were your deliberate opinions when you had heard all thefact8 during the trial. Supposing you had been called to the suffering patient, whilst he might have been yet recoverable-that you had been told that an individual, most constantly about his person, had procured, on two successive days, a portion of strychnine, and that the dreadful symptoms described, threatening death, had occurred only on those two days, would you have ridiculed a suggestion of the use of the stomach-pump and the usual means for the ejection, elimination, or neutralization of poison? I have no right publicly to question the sincerity of your opinions and theories, but as they have the semblance of being founded on reasoning and experience, I hope the above qtiestion may not be considered unpractical or irrelevant. THOMAS WARNER.
668
Chemistry
and
Pharmacy.
REPORTS ON THE
PROGRESS OF CHEMISTRY, ESPECIALLY WITH REFERENCE TO ITS
APPLICATIONS TO MEDICINE AND PHARMACY.
BY WILLIAM
BASTICK, ESQ.,
PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMIST.
No. III.
of Amorphous and Ordinary Phosphorus on the Organismus.—To a strong dog, Orflaa and Rigout gave ninety grains of amorphous phosphorus, in doses of thirty grains each for three days. On the fourth day they administered seventyfive grains. After the expiration of seven days, no unfavour. able symptoms having appeared, they gave daily thirty grains for thirteen days. The dog still remaining perfectly healthy, they introduced into the stomach thirty grains of ordinary The A etio7i
phosphorus and tied the œsophagus. The dog died the same day. As long as the dog took amorphous phosphorus it could not be detected in the excrements, but when the ordinary phosphorus was administered, the excrements were charged with phosphorescent vapours. They also gave to a young dog 750 grains, finely divided in olive oil. The animals scarcely a quarter of an hour. To another strong and healthy dog they administered 150 grains of amorphous phosphorus. The dog did not eat his usual food on that day, but exhibited no signs of sickness. Two days afterwards 750 grains of amorphous phosphorus were given to the same dog : he swallowed his meat at once, but soon began to vomit. On the same day he was again vigorous, and ate with a good appetite. After four days he took daily, for four days, 300 grains of amorphous phosphorus, and then for three days 750 grains each day, with his food. After the administration of this large quantity of amorphous phosphorus, the dog enjoyed a good appetite, and the vomiting did not reappear. Some few days after taking the last dose he was killed. Not the slightest injury had occurred to the intestinal canal; the oesophagus, stomach, and intestines appeared of a red colour, which could only originate from the amorphous or red phosphorus. Orfila and Rigout, on another occasion, gave thirty grains of ordinary phosphorus, pulverised by means of water, to a strong dog. In twelve hours the dog was dead. To ascertain whether the phosphorus would remain free in the intestines, the dog was not opened for fourteen days. It was observed that the dog was still perfectly free from putrefaction, while another dog, not killed with phosphorus, but placed in the same position, was in a state of decomposition. In the stomach and cesophagus of the poisoned dog was found a yellow, frothy substance, impregnated with the vapours of phosphorus. This substance, when heated, afforded a white name and dense vapour, shewing thereby the presence of free phosphorus. The mucous membranes of the œsophagus and stomach had a strong red colour. By agitating the fluid of the stomach with sulphuret of carbon, the authors found that after filtration the liquid separated into two layers, one watery, and the other oily-the latter consisting of the solution of phosphorus in sulphuret of carbon, from which the phosphorus may be again separated as a residue by spontaneous evaporation.
lived
The Action
in the Organismus.— the presence of alkali is necessary for the destruction of sugar in the body. On the truth of this assumption, diabetes is attributed to a a deficiency of alkali in the blood. To clear up so important a point in connexion with the treatment of this disease, Poggiale has instituted some experiments on animals, which were partly fed on flesh, and partly on starch or saccharine substances, mixed with as much bicarbonate of soda as rendered the urine strongly alkaline. Dogs were fed in the first series of experiments on flesh, to
According
to
of Alkalies
some
on
Sugar
investigators,
bines,. within one district, the attributes of many places elsewhere usually constituting separate towns. Thus Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Staffordshire, and Liverpool would seem as if here united, which peculiar circumstances must materially prove inimical to public health. When the gigantic scheme of bringing an ample supply of pure water from Loch Cateran, to remedy the present defective quantity of that ele. ment most essential for promoting the salubrity of all large towns shall be accomplished, other steps in advance must be made towards effecting additional improvements. After procuring plenty of good water, the public authorities ought also to endeavour to decarbonize their polluted atmosphere; for without two such important necessities as pure air and pure water, the physical strength and mental energy of man must inevitably suffer deterioration. Now that hygienic science has taken its proper position in public estimation, those who cultivate such studies should carefully observe, not only great events, but even minute passing phenomena. To arrive at any correct inference regarding the action of varied causes upon animal existence, observers ought carefully to record every peculiar circumstance affecting the particular community about which an investigation has been commenced. Microscopic and chemical examinations are unquestionably important; but having ascertained every fact of that kind deemed expedient, other matters become sometimes even much more suggestive as to the mode in which the public health can be practically ameliorated. In all great questions, instead of looking only with a microscopic eye, the trueaphilosopher must examine the whole matter telescopically; whereby, while he avoids being mystified by minutiae, the data synthetically accumulated-so to speak-shall be judiciously grouped, and thus he will be enabled to deduce correct conclusions.. Sanitary officers should imitate those successful admirals and generals who, in battle, always gained the victory
rapidly and decidedly by breaking through an enemy’s centre, or turning their flank, rather than by out-post skirmishings. That is the right mode of proceeding ; therefore, whether treating disease, improving insalubrious habitations, or pursuing investigations affecting human health, the chief more
features of each case should be first carefully examined, whilst phases of secondary importance are neither disregarded nor
forgotten. THE LATE TRIAL OF PALMER. To Me881-8.
Nunneley, M’Donald, Herapath,
and others.
YouR evidence in the late trial tends to prove that strychnine was not administered in the case of the late J. Parsons Cook, and that the indications were those of various other disorders having spasmodic and convulsive characters, and broadly distinguished from the effects of strychnine, the exhibition of which it was, in fact, absurd to suppose. Such were your deliberate opinions when you had heard all thefact8 during the trial. Supposing you had been called to the suffering patient, whilst he might have been yet recoverable-that you had been told that an individual, most constantly about his person, had procured, on two successive days, a portion of strychnine, and that the dreadful symptoms described, threatening death, had occurred only on those two days, would you have ridiculed a suggestion of the use of the stomach-pump and the usual means for the ejection, elimination, or neutralization of poison? I have no right publicly to question the sincerity of your opinions and theories, but as they have the semblance of being founded on reasoning and experience, I hope the above qtiestion may not be considered unpractical or irrelevant. THOMAS WARNER.
668
Chemistry
and
Pharmacy.
REPORTS ON THE
PROGRESS OF CHEMISTRY, ESPECIALLY WITH REFERENCE TO ITS
APPLICATIONS TO MEDICINE AND PHARMACY.
BY WILLIAM
BASTICK, ESQ.,
PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMIST.
No. III.
of Amorphous and Ordinary Phosphorus on the Organismus.—To a strong dog, Orflaa and Rigout gave ninety grains of amorphous phosphorus, in doses of thirty grains each for three days. On the fourth day they administered seventyfive grains. After the expiration of seven days, no unfavour. able symptoms having appeared, they gave daily thirty grains for thirteen days. The dog still remaining perfectly healthy, they introduced into the stomach thirty grains of ordinary The A etio7i
phosphorus and tied the œsophagus. The dog died the same day. As long as the dog took amorphous phosphorus it could not be detected in the excrements, but when the ordinary phosphorus was administered, the excrements were charged with phosphorescent vapours. They also gave to a young dog 750 grains, finely divided in olive oil. The animals scarcely a quarter of an hour. To another strong and healthy dog they administered 150 grains of amorphous phosphorus. The dog did not eat his usual food on that day, but exhibited no signs of sickness. Two days afterwards 750 grains of amorphous phosphorus were given to the same dog : he swallowed his meat at once, but soon began to vomit. On the same day he was again vigorous, and ate with a good appetite. After four days he took daily, for four days, 300 grains of amorphous phosphorus, and then for three days 750 grains each day, with his food. After the administration of this large quantity of amorphous phosphorus, the dog enjoyed a good appetite, and the vomiting did not reappear. Some few days after taking the last dose he was killed. Not the slightest injury had occurred to the intestinal canal; the oesophagus, stomach, and intestines appeared of a red colour, which could only originate from the amorphous or red phosphorus. Orfila and Rigout, on another occasion, gave thirty grains of ordinary phosphorus, pulverised by means of water, to a strong dog. In twelve hours the dog was dead. To ascertain whether the phosphorus would remain free in the intestines, the dog was not opened for fourteen days. It was observed that the dog was still perfectly free from putrefaction, while another dog, not killed with phosphorus, but placed in the same position, was in a state of decomposition. In the stomach and cesophagus of the poisoned dog was found a yellow, frothy substance, impregnated with the vapours of phosphorus. This substance, when heated, afforded a white name and dense vapour, shewing thereby the presence of free phosphorus. The mucous membranes of the œsophagus and stomach had a strong red colour. By agitating the fluid of the stomach with sulphuret of carbon, the authors found that after filtration the liquid separated into two layers, one watery, and the other oily-the latter consisting of the solution of phosphorus in sulphuret of carbon, from which the phosphorus may be again separated as a residue by spontaneous evaporation.
lived
The Action
in the Organismus.— the presence of alkali is necessary for the destruction of sugar in the body. On the truth of this assumption, diabetes is attributed to a a deficiency of alkali in the blood. To clear up so important a point in connexion with the treatment of this disease, Poggiale has instituted some experiments on animals, which were partly fed on flesh, and partly on starch or saccharine substances, mixed with as much bicarbonate of soda as rendered the urine strongly alkaline. Dogs were fed in the first series of experiments on flesh, to
According
to
of Alkalies
some
on
Sugar
investigators,