The Judge.—“Then anybody of respectable appearance and well dressed might apply? and is there anything by which you can satisfy yourself that the applicant is not an impostor and telling you that which is not true?”
Answer.—“The only thing would be the style of writing—whether it was in the style characteristic of medical men.”
The Judge.—“That hardly seems satisfactory.”
Mr. Poland.—“The Act does not require registration in the case of sale to a medical man.”
The Judge.—“It strikes me that anyone could go, if he had sufficient knowledge to write in the technical style of medical men, and get poison without difficulty; and though the matter is not before us in this case, it may be that the law requires amendment in this particular.”
The jury also appended to their verdict a presentment urging greater restrictions on the sale of poisons, with which the Judge thoroughly agreed, and undertook to forward it to the Home Secretary. During the present Session of Parliament the Government have announced that a “New Poisons Act” is preparing, and that it will deal with patent medicines. It is imperatively required.
[215] Entries in the Register of the New York Bloomingdale Asylum.
[216] Affidavit of Dr. G. H. Boyland, of Baltimore, U.S., a fellow student, and Dr. John Swinborne, of Albany, N.Y., Surgeon-in-Chief of the American Ambulance.
[217] Affidavits of Dr. Charles H. Von Klein, of Hamilton, County Butler, U.S., Surgeon in the Russian army, and Dr. F. P. Carey, of Auburn, N.Y., fellow surgeons with Lamson at Bucharest.
[218] Statutory declarations of about thirty persons—friends, servants, and such as occasionally came in contact with him during his residence at Bournemouth.