At the request of Mr. Humphreys, Mr. Gant, of the Royal Free Hospital, made a post-mortem examination of the body, and although it was in a somewhat advanced state of decomposition, he was unable to detect, in his opinion, sufficient cause for death. The stomach was then forwarded to me, by the coroner's orders, for chemical examination, as well as a bottle found by the side of the deceased, labelled "Laudanum, Poison." The bottle was perfectly dry, and merely had adhering to its side a small quantity of a brown deposit, an appearance not unfrequently seen on bottles in which laudanum has been kept. This deposit I tested, and found to be opium. The stomach was dried up, and it was impossible, owing to its semi-decomposed state, to make out any peculiar postmortem appearances. It merely seemed covered internally with a brownish red matter. One half I submitted to analysis, and detected morphia in considerable quantity, as well as a trace of meconic acid. These results I afterwards showed Dr. Letheby with the other half, and he confirmed my analysis.

These two cases may be regarded as typical cases of opium-poisoning. In the one, although it is a moral certainty that death resulted from the action of opium, the man confesses he has taken it-by his side is the empty bottle, and the glass from which he drank the laudanum is on the table-and yet chemical analysis entirely fails to detect it. In the other, although a long period has elapsed since death, there is no difficulty in its

detection.

And now the question naturally suggests itself, Why in one case is its discovery so easy and so certain, and in a second so difficult, indeed I may venture to add, impossible? There is but little doubt that the true explanation depends on the length of time that has elapsed between death and the exhibition of the poison. The action of the living stomach on opium, and as I shall point out in future papers, on organic poisons generally, is active and rapid. The poison may be taken, absorbed, and circulated, and yet if a sufficiently long time has passed, the medical jurist will probably fail to obtain any evidence whatever of its existence.

I will not attempt here to speculate on the causes of all this. It may be that the poison has been removed out of the reach of analysis, passing off by the secretions and excretions, if life be sufficiently prolonged-it may be that the quantity taken when distributed throughout the whole body is not in sufficient quantity in any one part, such as is submitted to analysis, to be discoverable; whereas, if we could experiment on the whole body we might find it; it may be that these poisons locate themselves in special parts of special viscera-or it may be (and such I deem most probable) that organic poisons when present in the living blood and the living stomach are really decomposed.

But on the other hand, I do not hesitate to state that the dead stomach has no action on opium, or upon organic poisons generally, which fact, as I believe it to be, I purpose dwelling upon at greater length afterwards. Here, at anyrate, is an illustration that a man has been dead four months, and yet opium is detected without difficulty. I believe Dr. Letheby has had several other cases in which he has found it after a still longer period. And thus we were able to draw the following conclusion in this curious case "That the man died from the effects of opium poisoning, and that he died very shortly after having taken the drug, or otherwise it would not have been discoverable."

I should wish here, briefly to allude to the detection of opium, (or rather of morphia and meconic acid) in organic mixtures. My own experience is that the morphia is far more readily detected than meconic acid. The plan occasionally recommended of decomposing the plumbic meconate with diute sulphuric acid, seems to me a very unsatisfactory and questionable mode of proceeding. Certainly it is far preferable to suspend the precipitate in a small quantity of water, and then decompose it by pass

ing a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen through it. The length of time this method takes may be an oblection to some. Meconic acid, I think, is broken up by the presence of a trace of free sulphuric acid. And further, if this mode of examination is adopted, the less water that is employed for suspending the impure neconate of lead the better, so that the application of heat to the neconic acid solution may be in this way rendered necessary.

Perhaps the best plan is to throw the precipitate, filter and all, into a mortar, and rub it up with either sulphate of soda, or what I am disposed to think is even preferable, namely, carbonate of soda, mixing it with a small quantity of water, uhtil a liquid is produced, having the consistency of a thick cream; allow this to remain about four or five hours, and then take up the neconic and set free by shaking with alcohol. The filtered liquid may then be tested.

I may venture, however, once again to repeat what I have already stated, that I believe in opium poisoning; it is quite possible to obtain very decided reactions of the alkaloid and yet fail to detect neconic acid.

WHEATEN FLOUR.-At a meeting of the Metropolitan As sociation of Medical Officers of Health on Saturday, objections were strongly urged against the use of flour separated from the husk, as is at present the custom for bread-making, especially in the preparation of children's food. The loss of the phos entire wheaten flour- that is, the bran being very finely ground phates and gluten thereby was much deplored, and the use of and dressed with the ordinary flour-advocated. We have submitted to analysis the entire wheaten flour prepared by Messrs. Chapman & Co., of Hatcham, and fully concur in the remarks made at the meeting on Saturday; at the same time we would suggest that the house mentioned should tempt the public by offering their flour in bulk at as low a price as they consistently can, in preference to the pound packets, which appears to be their present mode of sale.

THE Siamese Twins arrived in Liverpool from New York on Saturday last, and intend forthwith to again become the objects of a public exhibition in some of our chief cities, prior to the surgical separation, which is the primary cause of this second visit to our shores.

BEQUESTS TO MEDICAL CHARITIES.- Mr. John Bairstow, a manufacturer of Preston, who has just died at the age of ninety, has made the following among numerous charitable bequests:-Preston and County of Lancaster Royal Infirmary, 20,000l.; Medical Benevolent College, London, 2007. ; and to the Northern Counties Asylum for Idiots at Lancaster, he leaves 5,0007.

The

DISCOVERY IN REGARD TO BLOOD-LETTING.-A "Clinical Lecture on a case of Epilepsy and Vertigo, in which Bloodletting was employed with advantage," is reported. lecturer is no less distinguished a personage than Dr. C. Handfield Jones. A new light appears to be dawning on the profession with reference to the therapeutic action of venesection. The practice has now been discarded long enough to render blood-letting a comparative novelty, and the knowledge of its curative power, which was common-place with our grandfathers, is to be recovered by fresh observation and promulgated as original, to swell the current of progress which is the boast of the present age.-Pacific Medical Journal.

covered what was known a thousand years ago, but has been THE POISON OF TOADS.--Some European savans have disalmost lost in modern times, that the toad carries an active poison in its parotid region, almost as deadly as the curare. We opine that schoolboys in the Atlantic States are proof against it, or, at least, that it is not capable of any greater injury than the production of warts, which a popular notion attributes to the handling of the reptiles.Pacific Med. Jour.

EDUCATIONAL REFORM.-No. IV.

In our last two articles we pointed out that the institution of a single and uniform set of examinations for the bestowal of a minimum qualification to practise, and the publication by the Medical Council of a single code of regulations, were the essential and fundamental changes which would introduce order and method into our educational system. The difficulty of obtaining these changes -the former especially-we fully recognised; but as the difficulty is not insurmountable, we proceeded to point out the beneficial results which the changes would produce. On three of these-the abolition of schedules, the substitution for schedules of a general certificate vouching for good conduct and satisfactory study and signed by the Dean, and the reduction of lectures to their proper level we touched in the last article. The present article will be occupied with the consideration of three other advantages which would flow from the simple measures recommended in the Report of the Medical Teachers' Association. These are, the definition of the work required from the student, harmony between the curriculum established by the Medical Council and the curricula of our Universities, and the introduction of a single title in the place of a number of separate titles of variable and uncertain values.

In the present advanced state of scientific and medical knowledge it is utterly impossible for the student, in the limited time at his disposal, to master all the subjects which are crowded into the curriculum. In less than four years he has to obtain an acquaintance with chemistry, botany, materia medica, anatomy, physiology, pathology, medicine, surgery, hygiene, forensic medicine, midwifery, diseases of the eye, diseases of the ear, diseases of the skin, diseases of the throat, and diseases of the mind. In point of fact, the curriculum is often got through in less than three years, as the regulations of the English Licensing Bodies permit the student to pass one year or eighteen months with a registered medical practitioner. The recommendation of the Medical Council that there should

be four years' professional study contemplated four years' study at really educational institutions; but, owing to the Medical Act conferring a merely permissive authority over the licensing bodies, this important regulation is set at nought. If the authority of the Medical Council were made absolute over the corporations, four years' medical study would be insisted upon and divided into periods. At the end of each period there would be an examination, and no one would be able to count study in the second period before he had passed the examination terminating the first period; or in the third period (if there were three) before he had passed the examination terminating the second period. This point is also recommended in the Report of the Medical Teachers' Association, and judging from the remarks of the speakers at the last two meetings, there appears to be a pretty general agreement that four years' bond fide study are not more than sufficient for obtaining a theoretical and practical knowledge of the profession. Add to the division of the four years into periods the definition of the knowledge required from the student, and a very satisfactory arrangement is obtained. The latter desideratum is so well put in the Report to which we have referred, that we extract the passage.

"We are of opinion that the controlling authority ought to define with very much more precision than is now used, within what area of knowledge candidates for minimum qualification are to be examined to what exact extent in chemistry, to what exact extent in physiology, to what exact extent in forensic medicine, and so forth. We would insist that examinations should be thoroughly searching and strict within the area to which they purport to extend; and it is in order to this object that the examiner's requisition of knowledge should, in the first instance, be well defined. The present programme, unless it be understood with modifications which are not expressed in it, is, we think, too pretentious for its object. We cannot hope (much as we might wish) that everyone entering upon practice in the United Kingdom shall have thoroughly mastered all the studies which are nominally comprised in his curriculum-all the botany, physics, and chemistry, all the anatomy and physiology, all the forensic medicine and pharmacology, &c.; but if each such subject matter were defined in the manner we the requisition of the examining authority in regard of suggest, a really thorough knowledge within that more limited area might, we think, be made indispensable, and very advantageously be substituted for smatterings of larger pretension."

now

The next advantage of an uniform code of regulations issued by the Medical Council would be the harmony which would thenceforth exist between the curriculum of the Medical Council and the curricula of the Universities. We cannot but think that the classification of subjects and examinations adopted by the University of London is essentially correct and logical. To obtain the degree of Bachelor of Medicine four examinations must be passed: the first in general education, the second in scientific knowledge, the third in knowledge of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the human body and in knowledge of drugs, the fourth in diseases and the methods of cure. The knowledge embraced under both the two first heads can be acquired away from an hospital-at the universities, at schools, at colleges, and by private reading and tuition. It seems, therefore, an unsound principle to require students to come to a medical school to learn what they can learn as well elsewhere, and equally illogical to mix up general science with science applied to the human body. For these reasons we contend that botany, elemen

wouldn't have my messmates smell Dutch courage on my breath, sir; thankee all the same, doctor.' And he walked on deck and surrendered himself. All hands had already assembled, the men and boys on one side, and the officers, in cocked hats and swords, on the other. A grating had been lashed against the bulwarks, and another placed on deck beside it. The culprit's shoulders and back were bared, and a strong belt fastened around the lower part of the loins for protection; he was then firmly tied by the hands to the upper, and by the feet to the lower grating; a little basin of cold water was placed at his feet; and all was now prepared. The sentence was read, and orders given to proceed with the punishment. The cat is a terrible instrument of torture; I would not use it on a bull unless in self-defence; the shaft is about a foot and a-half long, and covered with green or red baize according to taste; the thongs are nine, about twentyeight inches in length, of the thickness of a goose-quill, and with two knots tied on each. Men describe the first blow as like a shower of molten lead. Combing out the thongs with his five fingers before each blow, firmly and determinedly was the first dozen delivered by the bo'swain's mate, and as unflinchingly received. Then, one dozen, sir, please,' he reported, saluting the commander. Continue the punishment,' was the calm reply. A new man and a new cat. Another dozen reported; again the same reply. Three dozen. The flesh, like burning steel, had changed from red to purple, and blue and white; and between the third and fourth dozen the suffering wretch, pale enough now. and in all probability sick, begged a comrade to give him a mouthful of water. There was a tear in the eye of the hardy sailor who obeyed him, whispering as he did so, keep up, Bill; it'll soon be over now.' " Five, six, the corporal slowly counted-seven, eight.' It is the last dozen, and how acute must be the torture! Nine, ten.' The blood comes now fast enough, and-yes, gentle reader, I will spare your feelings. The man was cast loose at last and put on the sicklist; he had borne his punishment without a groan and without moving a muscle. A large pet monkey sat crunching nuts in the rigging, and grinning all the time; I have no doubt he enjoyed the spectacle immensely, for he was only an ape.

"Tommie G- was a pretty, fair-skinned, blue-eyed boy, some sixteen summers old. He was one of a class only too common in the service; having become enamoured of the sea, he had run away from his nome and joined the service; and, poor little man! he found out when too late that the stern realities of a sailor's life did not at all accord with the golden notions he had formed of it. Being fond of stowing himself away in corners with a book, instead of keeping his watch, Tommy very often got into disgrace, spent much of his time at the mast-head, and had many unpleasant palmer rencounters with the corporal's cane. One day, his watch being over, he had retired to a corner with his little ditty box. Nobody ever knew one-half of the beloved kuicknacks and valued nothings he kept in that wee box; it was, in fact, his private cabin, his sanctum sanctorum, to which he would retreat when anything vexed him; a sort of portable home, in which he could forget the toils of his weary watch, the giddy mast-head, or even the corporal's cane. He had extracted, and was dreamily gazing on, the portrait of a very young lady, when the corporal came up and rudely seized it, and made a very rough and inelegant remark concerning the fair virgin. That is my sister,' cried Tommy, with tears in Your sister,' sneered the corporal; 'she's a and he added a word that cannot be named. There was the spirit of young England, however, in Tommy's breast; and the word had scarcely crossed the corporal's lips, when those lips, and his nose too, were dyed in the blood the boy's fist had drawn. For that blow poor Tommy was condemned to receive four dozen lashes. And the execution of the sentence was carried out with all the pomp and show usual on such occasions. Arrayed in cocked hats, epaulets, and swords, we all assembled to witness that helpless child in his agony. One would have thought that even the rough bo'swain's mate would have hesitated to disfigure skin so white and tender, or that the frightened and imploring glance Tommy cast upward on the first descending lash would have unnerved his arm. Did it? No, reader; pity there doubtless was among us, but mercy-none. Oh! we were a brave band! And the poor boy writhed in his agony; his screams and cries were heartrending; and, God forgive us! we knew not till then he was an orphan, till we heard him beseech his mother

his eyes.

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in heaven to look down on her son, to pity and support him. Ah well, perhaps she did, for scarcely had the third dozen commenced when Tommy's cries were hushed, his head drooped on his shoulder like a little dead bird's, and for a while his sufferings were at an end. I gladly took the opportunity to report further proceedings as dangerous, and he was taken away to his hammock. I will not shock the nerves and feelings of the reader by any further relations of the horrors of flogging, merely adding, that I consider corporal punishment, as applied to men, cowardly, cruel, and debasing to human nature; and as applied to boys, brutal, and sometimes even fiendish. There is only one question I wish to ask of every true-hearted English lady who may read these linesbe you sister, wife, or mother, could you in your heart have respected the commander who, with folded arms and grim smile, replied to poor Tommy's frantic appeals for mercy, continue the punishment."

EXTRA PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL PUBLICATION. DR. HAVILAND rice the Standard, or the Standard pro Dr. Haviland, entered last Saturday on a reply to the extent of a column and a half to the flagellation administered to both by the Lancet a couple of weeks since, on the occasion of the publication in its entirety of Dr. Haviland's paper recently read before the Medical Society of London.

The latter half of the defence is devoted altogether to a refutation of certain alleged scientific errors which the Lancet was supposed to have fallen into in its criticism, and which had no relevancy whatever to the question of the propriety of extra professional publication, with_which we are most interested. For the purposes of the Lancet's condemnation it is immaterial whether Dr. Haviland's figures were right or wrong, and we cannot allow the question to be begged by the introduction of the scientific matter at all.

We aver that the publication of medical communica tions in the public press is most injudicious on the part of the journal which admits them, and much worse than injudicious on the part of any author who abets or permits their publication.

The tacit consent of the public press generally to abstain from the practice, while a legion of authors might be had ready to furnish contributions, and while abundance of medical subjects might be selected such as would interest their readers, is evidence of the feeling that such publication is out of place and impolitic. For the same reason that it would be inadvisable to introduce the art readers are not educated so as to judge for themselves, of making gunpowder into a boy's magazine, because the and most probably make a mistaken use of the instruction, medical dissertations in public papers are objectionable. Does not the reading of medical books on their own diseases always lead patients to delusions and panics in every direction? Surely then it is not well to place Dr. Haviland's or anyone else's medical views before an indiscriminate herd of readers, many of whom have no doubt felt all the imaginary symptoms of cancer ever since the bug-a-boo has been hung out by the Standard.

from active assistance in the publication. The defence would appear to exonerate Dr. Haviland

In the good old times doctors wrote essays for the instruction of their brethren, and the addition to medical science of their views and experiences. Is that intention subserved by contributions to the penny papers? We think not, nor can we recognise any marked distinction between the use of a doctor's name (if with his consent) in the news columns of a penny paper, and the same doctor's name amongst the advertisements in the adjoining

page.

THE SUPERANNUATION OF IRISH POOR-LAW MEDICAL OFFICERS.

THE Draft Bill which we announced last week that the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland had