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find ignorant people to pass off his " herbs, roots, and barks."But if Flitcroft had really been appointed an assistant, whywas Dr. Coffin not here to produce the appointment Herewe have a man treating inflammation of the lungs as scarletfever. He goes to a house where there are four children ap-parently in the jaws of death; he does not suggest that a sur-geon should be called in, but goes on prescribing till one ofthem dies, and the answer is, that he did not prescribe as anapothecary, but as an agent to a herbalist ! The simplequestion for the jury to decide was, did Flitcroft act as anapothecary? That he had done so there could be no doubt;and he left the matter with the utmost confidence in thehands of the jury.The RECORDER, in recapitulating the evidence, said that

Flitcroft was indicted for acting as an apothecary, not havinga certificate entitling him to do so. The question was, notwhether the medicines had been properly prescribed, butwhether, in prescribing them, he acted as an apothecary.The intention of the act was to prevent unskilful personsfrom acting as apothecaries, to the danger of her majesty’slieges. The 14th section prohibited any person from prac-tising as an apothecary without a certificate, and that Flit-croft had not a certificate was admitted by himself. Hisstatement was, that he only practised in herbs, and did not,

to therefore, require one, and the question for the jury was,whether, in law, he did or did not practise as an apothecary,There was a section in the act imposing a penalty, if the par-ties had thought proper, but it was equally open to them toproceed, as they had done, by indictment. The learned Re-corder then proceeded to read the evidence, making suchcomments as he thought necessary; and in conclusion, lieremarked, that their duty was to dismiss all other considera-tions from their minds, and decide whether or not Flitcroft,in attending the parties and prescribing for them, had actedas an apothecary within the meaning of the act of parliament.- The jury retired about one o’clock, and returned into courtat a quarter past two, when the foreman pronounced a ver-dict of guilty against Ellis Flitcroft.—Mr. Sowler applied foran arrest of judgment, on the ground that Flitcroft ought tohave been charged under the 20th section of the act, as anassistant -The Recorder said, an indictment would not lieupon the 20th section. The prohibition was in the 14th, andupon that the indictment must be founded. When an act ofparliament prohibited a person from doing a certain thing,parties offending must be indicted on the prohibitory clause,and not upon those providing punishment.—Mr. Brandt readan extract from Archbold, confirming the opinion of the re-corder. He also stated that, as the object of the prosecutionwas to show parties what the law really was, they had nodesire to ask any very severe punishment against Flitcroft.The Recorder then sentenced Flitcroft to one month’s im-prisonment in the New Bailey.—Manchester Guardian.

FATAL QUACKERY AT HALIFAX.

ANOTHER case of death from quack medicines has justoccurred at Halifax, in which a most respectable member ofour profession, Mr. Joseph Hodgson, of that town, met hisdeath accidentally, in consequence of assisting at the post-mortem examination of the victim to quackery. We aregiven to understand that the quack in this case was anotheragent for the sale of Dr." Coffin’s medicines. We print thefollowing particulars from the Halifax Guardian of April 10th,1847 :-" It is, to-day, our melancholy duty to record in our obituary

the death of Mr. Joseph Hodgson, of this town, surgeon,which took place under circumstances of peculiarly painfulinterest. He had been professionally called in, on Sunday,the 28th ult., to attend a man near King Cross, whom hefound to be in a dying state. It was proved before a coroner’sjury that the man had been only a few days ill, and hadapplied to a Quack at Highroad Well, whose medicine he hadbeen taking up to the time of Mr. Hodgson’s visit. And asthe man had apparently died in the prime of life, and thebody presented a remarkably strong and athletic appearance,a post-mortem examination was directed to be made. Inthis examination Mr. Hodgson was assisted by his brother,Mr. T. Hodgson, and Dr. Inglis. Every organ of the bodywas found in a natural state, with the exception of a struc-tural disease of long standing in the chest, the result ofprevious inflammation. The blood, however, was found fluid,as is the case in death by lightning, or by some of the vege-table poisons. The venous system was largely congested,winch appeared to be the immediate cause of death. Had

proper medical assistance, therefore, been called in at anearlier period, the man might have been saved, and thefearful consequence we have now to record would have beenaverted. At the time of making the examination, Mr. Hodg-son had a slight eruption on the back of his right hand.Here the animal poison from the dead body was absorbed.The usual consequences presented themselves with fearfuland fatal rapidity-a rapidity, however, that he alone beheldwith firmness and resignation. He was a man of highreligious feeling, to whom death, though it came thus unex-pectedly, came not without preparation. On Thursday, atnoon, he calmly yielded up his spirit, and fell a victim pri-marily to his professional pursuits; but indirectly also to thattampering with human life to which so many lives are annuallysacrificed."

INQUEST ON THE PATIENT OF A HOMOEOPATH.ON Friday, March 19th, an inquest was held at Birkenhead,

before Henry Cliurton, Esq., Coroner for Cheshire, touchingthe death of Thomas Hilliar, an infant, aged ten months. Itappeared from the evidence of a domestic in Mr. Hilliar’sfamily, that the deceased was ten months old; had beenrather a delicate child; and had suffered from occasionalattacks of cold. On the Wednesday week previous, he wasseized with a cough, shortness of breathing, fever, &.c., and arash had broken out on his body two or three days before.On the following Friday, Dr. Norton first visited the child,and on the following Sunday, ordered him to be taken toNew Brighton, for change of air. The child, becoming worse,was brought back to Birkenhead on the following day, andexpired between three and four o’clock on Tuesday morning.On the evening before the decease, Dr. David Macrorie, ofLiverpool, was called in, who deposed, that at that time hefound the patient labouring under symptoms of acute bron-chitis, and apparently moribund. Mrs. Hilliar said to him," Doctor, I suppose you would not like to meet Dr. Norton."This he declined to do, "knowing," as he stated, "from thenature of Dr. Norton’s practice, that it would be quite uselessto do so." He. however, afterwards met Dr. Norton, as hewas leaving the house, and had some conversation with thatgentleman, regarding the nature of deceased’s illness. Hestated, " I thought, from that conversation, that Dr. Nortonhad the same opinion as myself, as to the nature of the child’sillness; I recollect telling him, I thought the child shouldhave lost blood in the early stage of its illness.Mr. ARTHUR BROWNE STEELE, Surgeon, Birkenhead, deposed

to having made a post-mortem examination of the body ofdeceased, as follows:—" The body, externally, was that of a finehealthy child. On opening the chest, I found a considerableeffusion of fluid in the pericardium, and also some depositionof recent lymph, indicating inflammation of the pericardium.The mucous membrane lining the bronchial tubes presentedsigns of acute Inflamation throughout its whole extent,more particularly in the smaller branches. There was a con-siderable quantity of muco-purulent secretion, filling theminute ramifications of the bronchi. A large portion of theinferior part of the left lung was hepatized, from pneumonia,or acute inflammation. The right lung was in a similar con-dition, but not quite so extensively diseased.

" The immediate cause of deceased’s death was acute bron-chitis : the pneumonia also contributed, in some measure, tothe fatal result. The morbid appearances found in deceased’sbody were all of recent date. The duration of deceased’sdisease must have been much less than a month, and mostlikely not more than a few days."

Dr. NORTON, who was present, in reply to a juror, said hewas a member of the College of Surgeons of London, and alicentiate of the University of Aberdeen, and lie stated, thathe did not wish to establish the case as one of chronic dis-ease, but denied the existence of acute inflammation. Healso considered it quite right, in fact advisable, to send thechild to New Brighton on Sunday, (a circumstance which hadcaused much animadversion.)The coroner, (a medical coroner ?) in his charge to the jury,,

remarked, that " Dr. Norton, who attended deceased, althougha regularly educated practitioner, pursues a peculiar mode oftreatment called homoeopathy, and had no doubt as muchfaith in his system as other medical men have in theirs; butthey must not forget that the system called homoeopathy isnot sanctioned by the heads of the profession, or by the hos-pitals, in London, or any other part of the united kingdom;and when it was considered that such men as Sir BenjaminBrodie, Mr. Lawrence, Sir Astley Cooper, and other men ofthe greatest eminence, were of opinion, that homœopathic

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treatment was such as ought not to be adopted, it was, hethought, necessary to consider how far it was justifiable to

pursue that treatment. Dr. Norton had not described thekind of treatment he had adopted in this case, further thanthat he administered remedies according to the principles ofhis system; but he (the coroner) understood they (the homaeo-pathists) did not usually bleed, and that they used no mer-cury or tartar emetic, except in very small doses. He (thecoroner) quite agreed in the observations of Dr. Macrorieand Mr. Steele, that in cases of acute bronchitis the mostprompt and powerful remedies were required, as well as ininflammation of other tissues of the body; and he thought,that unles ssuch means were adopted, the lives of individualsmust be jeopardized by the treatment of Dr. Norton. Dr.Norton had endeavoured to explain his view of the nature ofdeceased’s death, which wholly differed from that of Dr.Macrorie, corroborated as that gentleman was by the post-mortem examination. He thought the jury would agree inthe opinion, that the child died from acute bronchitis.Whether they accompanied their verdict by any referenceto homoeopathy was a question entirely for their considera-tion."The jury returned a verdict of " Died by the visitation of

God."It was stated, during the inquiry, by some of the friends

of deceased who were present, that Mr. Hilliar had lost twoother children by the same complaint, although they wereattended by routine practitioners; and Dr. Norton has pub-lished a letter, wherein he alludes to this statement as havingbeen given in evidence. Nothing of the sort, however, appears on the depositions taken at the inquest, and on inquiryit turns out that Mr. Hilliar, previous to his having resortedto homoeopathic practice, lost one child from dysentery underthe care of a routine practitioner, and the other child died ofhooping-cough, or some chest affection, after the father’s con-version to homoeopathy.

Correspondence.ETHER-VAPOUR AND OXYGEN.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.SiR,-In reply to the observations of Dr. Gardner, in the

last number of THE LANCET, in reference to the above subject,I have merely to state—1st, that when I wrote the " Pamphleton the Inhalation of Ether," I inserted the entire paper ofDr. Bigelow, as read before the Boston Medical Society, andpublished in the Boston Medical Jozsrnal, and subsequentlyin your own, in which no mention is made of oxygen. 2ndly,I was not aware that Dr. Jackson had recommended, as Ibelieve for the first time, the inhalation of oxygen in cases ofasphyxia, until I saw it alluded to in the last number of theBritish and Foreign Medical Review, which appeared after myletter had been forwarded to your office, and which I shouldhave mentioned, in conjunction with some other experimentsI have been macking with hydrogen and oxygen, in somefuture number of your journal.—I am, Sir, your obedientmurC L IJ

servant, JAMES ROBINSON.Gower-street, Bedford-square, April, 1847.

ON OXYGEN, AS A CORRECTIVE OF THE SE-CONDARY EFFECTS OF ETHER IN SURGICALOPERATIONS.

!7’o the Editor of THE LANCET.SIR, —It appears quite clear, from the experiments of Mr.

Robinson,-to whom the profession is much indebted for hiszeal in the application of ether to the practice of surgery,-that the inhalation of oxygen, subsequent to the use of ether,-will remove any apprehension of secondary consequences.

Every suggestion by which this corrective agent may beconveniently applied must be particularly interesting at thepresent time. With this view, I have pleasure in proposingthe ferrate of potassa, as offering unusual facilities for obtain-ing and employing pure oxygen, conjunctively with ether, insurgical operations.

There are several modes by which this substance can beprocured:

1. Those adopted by Fremy, its discoverer :-1. By calcination: Take any quantity of the peroxides of

iron and potassium, and subject to calcination in acrucible.

2. By ignition: Subject to ignition a mixture of potassaand oxide of iron.

3. By heat: Take nitrate of potash and iron filings infine powder, and subject to a glowing red heat in a,crucible.

II. That adopted by Trommsdorff:--Take finely pulverized iron filings, two drachms; pul-

verized nitrate of potash, four drachms: mix, place itin an eight or ten ounce crucible, heated to a glowingred, still standing on red-hot coals; and when combina-tion takes place on one side, shown by the evolution oflight and white fumes, remove it from the fire. Assoon as the deflagration of the mixture has ceased,scrape out the mass on to a cool plate by means of an

I iron spatula.; The product is a dark reddish-black mass, forming a cherry-red solution with water, which quickly undergoes decomposi-tion, depositing sesqui-oxide of iron, and evolving pure oxygen.The latter is the preferable process. It should be preservedin stoppered bottles.In the use of this, it is only necessary to drop a piece of the

substance into a common inhaler half filled with water, orinto a basin. with an inverted fiumel nlaced over it.

THOMAS CATTELL.Braunston, Northamptonshire, April, 1847.

THE CYCLOPÆDIA OF ANATOMY.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—Another Part of the " Cyclopsedia of Anatomy" hasat last made its appearance, after a gestation of about four-teen months.

This work, as your readers are aware, was commenced inJune, 1835, and was to be printed " upon superfine paper,"and completed in about twenty Parts. The work has nowreached twenty-eight Parts, after the lapse of nearly twelveyears. Here is a pretty specimen of the faith kept by theeditors of works published in Parts with their subscribers andthe public!But in addition to the annoyance of delay in the comple-

tion of a work like this, the subscribers are made the sportof the editor. In a note prefixed to this Part, the editor says," he finds it impossible to complete the Cyclopaedia, as it wasoriginally proposed to do, in three volumes. * * * Heproposes, therefore, to make a fourth volume with the re-maining Parts, which will not, he hopes, exceed six innumber." This note is dated April, 1847; and I feel con-vinced that it must have been written on the first day of thatmonth; for if Dr. Todd seriously believes that he will everlive to publish six more Parts of that work, he makes a foolof himself; and if his subscribers are credulous enough tobelieve him, they are also first of April friends of his.For my own part, I shall leave my own early portion of Dr.

Todd’s work to my youngest boy, with the hope, that in hislife the doctor’s executor, or successor, may bring it to afinish.-I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

AN OLD READER OF THE LANCET.

DR. JEFFREYS AND MATICO.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—In your leader of THE LANCET for last Saturday, youhave thought proper to mention " Matico and Jeffreys" in amanner not very flattering to my feelings, or, what is of farmore importance, that of accuracy. I quite agree with youthat the sale of matico has been too often advertised, both inother journals as well as in THE LANCET; and I have, about afortnight since, written to Mr. Keating to that effect, which Ishould have done a few months ago had not declining healthprevented me, and which still exists. I quite agree with youthat the frequency of its appearance as advertised bordersclose upon a feeling of such quackery as it has been my aim,for now more than half a century in practice, to carefullyavoid; and when you assert that it is a want of "morality,"and a wish for "gain," which is the spring of the action, Ihave merely to say that all the pecuniary advantage which Ihave had from it is not one half of what I have had to pay,at a dead loss, for printing-a subject better known by youthan by your respondent, THOMAS JEFFREYS, M.D.

Liverpool, April, 1847-

*,,* We did not accuse Dr. Jeffreys of a desire for " gain,"or question his " morality." As it appears, Dr. Jeffreys isinjuring the profession without benefitmg himself. Could henot assume the mastery over his own pamphlet ? If Mr.Keating advertises matico to a quackish extent, let him notbe allowed to use up Dr. Jeffreys as a pendant. The Doctor’sletter seems to have produced little effect; for we see theadvertisement appears this week as usual.—ED. L.