"I had given it to him from time to time."
"On the afternoon of November 10th,—you remember that he came to you in consequence of a heart attack. Did you give him digitalin then?"
Dr. Penberthy appeared to hesitate painfully for a moment. Then he turned to his desk and extracted a large book.
"I had better be perfectly frank with you," he said. "I did. When he came to me, the feebleness of the heart's action and the extreme difficulty in breathing suggested the urgent necessity of a cardiac stimulant. I gave him a prescription containing a small quantity of digitalin to relieve this condition. Here is the prescription. I will write it out for you."
"A small quantity?" repeated Parker.
"Quite small, combined with other drugs to counteract the depressing after-effects."
"It was not as large as the dose afterwards found in the body?"
"Good heavens, no—nothing like. In a case like General Fentiman's, digitalin is a drug to be administered with the greatest caution."
"It would not be possible, I suppose, for you to have made a mistake in dispensing? To have given an over-dose by error?"
"That possibility occurred to me at once, but as soon as I heard Sir James Lubbock's figures, I realized that it was quite out of the question. The dose given was enormous; nearly two grains. But, to make quite certain, I have had my supply of the drug carefully checked, and it is all accounted for."