come to no other decision. Here was a
man, reported to have been almost proverbial
for his correctness in attending to
prescriptions, passing the compliment to a
nursery maid, and entering into what he was
pleased to call "general conversation," while
he dispensed his medicines. He then reached
from a shelf — on which are huddled together
drugs the most innocent and the most poisonous
—a bottle labelled strychnine. But the
label is neglected— nine grains of the deadly
poison are duly weighed out— the draught is
made up, and despatched with comfortable
assurance inscribed upon the bottle "the
mixture as before." Fortunately, and it is
much to the credit of the dispensing chemists,
these accidents are not very common; it
would be useless to attempt to insist by law
upon such precautionary measures as blue
bottles, or yellow labels, or poison closets, or
a poison-dispensing assistant, or any other of
the dozen plans that are invariably suggested
whenever we are startled by a case of
accidental poisoning. Each chemist must be
aware what are the wisest precautions for
himself to adopt, but no special legislation is
likely to aid a better observance of such
measures if the consciousness of their position,
and the dread of criminal punishment are
not sufficient to deter even the most careful
druggist, from occasionally leaving their
business to incompetent assistants, or from
dispensing their medicines hurriedly or
incautiously.

Those who prescribe are scarcely less liable
to mistakes than those who dispense. The
other day, a physician in Paris unintentionally
prescribed for a lady two pills, each containing
one grain of strychnine. The poison
was swallowed, and, wonderful to relate,
without a fatal result. Within a still more
recent date, a gentleman in London has had
an equally miraculous escape. He had been
recommended, by an eminent physician,
under certain circumstances, to send to the
chemist for one-third of a grain of morphia;
instead of which he sent for three grains.
They were sent him in three pills, which the
invalid took one after the other. He luckily
became very sick, and soon recovered.

Scarcely a year passes without cases
occurring of murder or suicide, in which strychnine
is the agent made use of; and such is certain
to be the case as long as there is free trade in
the sale of drugs —as long as grocers are
permitted to sell Battle's vermin-killer, or
preparations of a similar description, to every
person who looks for them. The advantages
and difficulties, however, of restricting
the sale of drugs have been so often argued,
that it is useless to repeat them. We hasten
to say what little is known of the antidotes
of strychnine. Tannin has already been
mentioned; its good effects rest chiefly on
the authority of continental physicians. M.
Tilley, in eighteen hundred and forty-one,
published a case in which a spoonful of
laurel water, which would contain some
tannin, was given after a tetanic fit. The
patient vomited immediately afterwards;
another spoonful was then given, upon which
the spasms became less violent, and entirely
disappeared after a third spoonful of the
laurel water.

In eighteen hundred and forty-two, Dr.
Ludorche prescribed tannin in a case where
half a grain of strychnine had been swallowed
—and death did not ensue. That the preservation
of life depended upon the tannic acid
requires further proof.

In the meantime another foreigner, M,
Donné, of Paris, has stated that he has found
iodine, bromine, and chlorine to be antidotes
for the alkaloid of nux vomica, as well as for
the other vegetable alkaloids. One grain of
strychnine, followed immediately by tincture
of iodine, was given to animals, which
sustained no harm; but a delay of ten minutes
rendered the antidote useless. No experiments
appear to have been carried out to
discover if the same advantages can be
derived in cases of poisoning by nux vomica
itself.

In the American Journal of Sciences,
October, eighteen hundred and fifty-five, a
perfectly new antidote is mentioned, which,
should it prove on further trial satisfactory,
will have the great advantage of being always
at hand: this is lard. Its antidotal properties
are founded upon the following circumstance.
A gentleman having been much
annoyed by some dogs, resolved to poison
them. For this purpose a piece of meat,
containing one grain of strychnine, was
placed on the ground beside some lard. A
dog was observed to eat both meat and lard
without being poisoned. The next night
three pieces of meat were laid down containing
strychnine, and no lard placed near it.
In the morning three dogs were found dead.
In nine instances, in which lard was given
with the strychnine, the animals did not die.
In eleven cases, where no lard was given, all
died. Half a grain was sufficient to produce
death; but three grains failed when lard was
used.

What are the tests for strychnine? Do any
exist? or is the poison as subtle as it is
powerful, accomplishing its frightful work of
torture and death without leaving a trace of
its presence behind?

Tests there are, and plenty. The subject
has been carefully and laboriously worked at,
both by chemists and physiologists; and
from time to time new means of detecting
the poison have been discovered, rivalling
each other in delicacy, until one of the most
distinguished physiologists of the age has
succeeded in demonstrating the presence of
so minute an atom as the twenty-five-
hundredth part of a grain.

If nitric acid be dropped upon powdered
nux vomica, an orange-red colour is produced.
The same is the case with strychnine, as it is