CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
POISONING.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
COOKING CLASSES FOR CHILDREN.
AN AMATEUR ‘CABBY.’
COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.
MISTLETOE.
{769}
No. 49.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1884.
POISONING.
An examination of the Registrar-general’s annualReport for 1882 gives some interesting and suggestivestatistics as to cases of poisoning, whichwe think it may not be out of place to callattention to. Probably few of our readers willbe aware how frequently cases of poisoning occurin the ordinary course of events. In the year1881, for example, there were five hundred andsixty-nine deaths recorded in England alonefrom poisoning; while the year 1882 shows arecord considerably in excess of this, namely,five hundred and ninety-nine, or one in everyeight hundred and sixty-three of the total deathsregistered. Fully two-fifths of these cases areclassified under the heading ‘Accident and Negligence’—theremainder are suicides, of which wewill have a word to say by-and-by—and asit is not too much to assume that in nearlyevery instance such cases are preventable, wepurpose calling attention to some of the morecommon causes of these fatalities, in the hopethat the suggestions and warnings thrown outmay not be without their influence in producingmore care in the handling and use of thesedangerous substances.
Glancing over the various poisons, we findthat the well-known preparations of opium,laudanum, and morphia—opium itself beingincluded—head the list, having caused eighty-fivedeaths through accident or negligence. Thismight have been expected from preparations solargely used in domestic remedies; but theseventy-eight deaths from lead-poisoning whichfollow do surprise us, in view of the fact thatthe conditions which produce as well as theconditions which mitigate or counteract theeffects of this subtle poison, are now so wellknown. Lead is followed by the four strongeracids—hydrochloric, nitric, sulphuric, and carbolic,which amongst them have caused thirty-fourdeaths under the same category. Arsenic,again, caused nine; phosphorus, eleven; chlorodyne,six; chloral, fourteen; chloroform, four;soothing syrup, four; with a host of casualtiesfrom substances of minor importance.
Reading between the lines of the Registrar-general’sReport, which it is not difficult to do,with the help of the medical journals, we willfind that there are two prolific causes of theseaccidents—first, the giving or taking of overdosesof cer