medicine and the law

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wards were provided which have served to relieve over-

crowding and to afford accommodation for further cases.The committee of directors states in its report that theadditional wards above referred to form part of a new

asylum which will shortly be completed. All the available

capital at the disposal of the committee has been utilised toerect the new asylum and about ae:4000 have been borrowed tocomplete the furnishings.

MEDICINE AND THE LAW.

l’ive 3ears’ Penal T’MMeOT’ Quack. -

THE case of the man Herring who was convicted at thelast sessions at the Old Bailey, as recorded in THE LANCETof Nov. lst, p. 1214, had as its result his conviction for

manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to five years’ penalservitude. Herring had been a clerk in the employment ofa railway company, he bad no sort or semblance of medicaltraining or qualification, he pretended to be a medical man,going so far as to adopt the names of members of themedical profession. He was called in to attend a womanwho was suffering from strangulated hernia-a conditionwhich he had very likely never heard of ; he said thatshe had inflammation and he continued to pretend to

give her medical aid until it was too late for the medical

practitioner ultimately called in to save her life. Herringwas convicted of manslaughter, coming before a judge,Mr. Justice Bigham, who took care that the jury shouldfully appreciate the case for the prosecution. Had Herringescaped conviction for manslaughter he could have beentried for perjury, having sworn at the inquest that he was aregistered medical practitioner. His case was a heinous oneand he had no doubt added to the certainty of conviction bythe aliases he had assumed and the false pretences of whichhe had been guilty and if he had been detected sooner hecould no doubt have been dealt with for illegal practice. Itmust be remembered, however, that if Herring had contentedhimself with practice without pretending to medical qualifi-cations he would still have found patients and the law would

, have permitted him to go on until one of his victims died,while even then it would have been quite possible for him tohave escaped the conviction which in the circumstances hasfallen to his lot.

Herring’s case is an apt illustration of the difficultieswhich are imposed upon coroners to which attention wascalled in an annotation in THE LANCET of Nov. 1st, p. 1209.He might have been acting without any false pretenceof qualification as what the Home Secretary in the letterwhich we quoted called an "unregistered medical prac-titioner." Had his patient died in such circumstances with-out the intervention of any qualified practitioner the coronerwould have had either to permit the burial of the deceasedwithout an inquest or to have formed an opinion chieflyupon such materials as the person most interested mightafford him as to whether the cause of death was one whichshould be inquired into. Had the coroner on such an

occasion ordered a post-mortem examination and held an

inquest avowedly because he could not trust to informationsupplied by a person without qualification to give it he wouldhave been liable to have his conduct laid before the Home

Secretary and would have received no support from thatofficial. Coroners will, however, no doubt take note of thecase of Herring and regard cases of death in which quackshave been in attendance with careful scrutiny.

Boric Acid as a Preservati1’e.

In two cases heard in London police-courts recently theuse of boric acid as a preservative was called in question.In the one a firm of provision dealers were summoned underthe Sale of Food and Drugs Act for selling cream which,according to the Daily Tele,ra7z report of the case, con-tained boric acid in a proportion equal to 51’2 grains to thepound. They had, however, given notice to purchasers thatthe cream was not in its natural state by affixing to the out-side of the small jugs in which it was sold labels with the

inscription, 11 This cream contains a small quantity of boracicacid preservative to retard sourness in accordance with the

Ipractice of the last ten years," and the summons againstthem was dismissed, Mr. Denman holding that the label Iprotected them and pointing out that there was nothing

definitely laid down as to what constituted a proportion ofboric acid dangerous to health.

In the other case, heard at the South-Western Police-court,the boric acid had been added to a churn of milk in the pro-portion of 38 grains per gallon and a warranty had beengiven as to the purity of the milk, the precise terms of whichdo not appear in the Times report of the case. The de-fendant, a farmer who had consigned the milk to dealers inLondon, gave evidence in his own behalf that he had boughtthe preservative used under the name of "Jack Frost,"recommended by an advertisement as "tasteless, odourless,harmless," and that he had no idea that "Jack ]’rost" " wascomposed of boric acid. Mr. Garrett, the magistrate whoheard the case, fined the defendant <E10 with 12s. 6d. costs.

In THE LANCET of Dec. 14th, 1901, p. 1682, the report ofthe Departmental Committee which inquired into the use ofpreservatives in foods was commented upon. This report,it will be remembered, recommended the prohibition of allchemical preservatives in milk, but proposed in the case ofcream to make the addition of boric acid or mixtures ofboric acid and borax lawful, subject to the amount not

exceeding 0’25 per cent. expressed as boric acid. As far aswe are aware no regulation has hitherto been made as aresult of this report, so that it is still necessary to callscientific evidence in each case as to the nature and

properties of the preservative made use of, while each

magistrate has to draw his own conclusions afresh from theevidence before him.

infringement of Trade-marks.Messrs. Burroughs, Wellcome and Co. have forwarded to

us copies of judgments obtained by them in the Civil andPenal Tribunal of Milan and in the Appeal Court of Milanrestraining certain Italian traders from infringing their trade-mark and selling imitations of their well-known goods. Theconduct of the defendants appears to have been extremelybarefaced and audacious, as we gather from the judgments,which discuss the legal aspects of the case with greatelaboration, that they made use of the name of the plaintiffs,imitated their" tabloid " trade-mark, imitated their products,and imitated their bottles. Moreover, we fail to gatherfrom the judgments that the infringers were able to set upanything worthy of the name of defence or that they badany ground for their appeal. We note, however, that thosewho complain, often without reason, of the law’s delays inEngland would hardly find themselves better off in Italy, forMessrs. Burroughs, Wellcome and Co. appear to have

begun their action in or before September, 1900, to haveobtained judgment for an injunction and damages in thecourt of first instance in June, 1901, and to have won theirappeal quite recently-that is to say, in the latter part of1902. We congratulate the plaintiffs upon their success

which, besides being satisfactory in every way to themselves,will encourage English firms in the protection of their trade-marks and goods in the Italian courts.

THE PREVENTION OF CONSUMPTION ANDOTHER FORMS OF TUBERCULOSIS.

AT a meeting of the local Society for the Prevention ofConsumption held at Newcastle it was decided to build asanatorium for consumptive patients in Northumberland andNewcastle. The proposed building is to accommodate 50patients and will cost 50,000. Subscriptions amounting toE8000 were announced, of which Mr. Watson Armstronggave .B4000, and Sir Andrew Noble, Mr. W. D. Cruddas,and Mr. Mitchell E1000 each.

Dr. J. Cunningham Bowie of Cardiff, writing recentlyin the CM"cliff News, argues that the money whichwould be necessary for one year’s maintenance of the con-templated sanatoriums in the two counties of Glamorganand Monmouth if capitalised would approximately amount to.BI0,OOO,OOO sterling, and it might be safely contended that ifthis sum was expended in acquiring suitable land at its agri-cultural value for the purpose of rehousing the people in thetowns upon the principie of "garden cities," and in pro-viding healthy cottages in the rural districts, it would go along way towards solving, not only the problem of consump-tion, but the other zymotic diseases as well. He believed

that no effective way of dealing with this subject would everbe found inside cities and large towns as at present con-stituted. The people must be spread over the land upon