The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-06-25 00:00:00

OPILTNI.SSIUGGLING IN JAPAN.

The Tokio Times reports a most remarkable decision
by a British Consular officer. One John Hartley, a
dealer in dniga. books, &c., attempted to introduce
twenty rattles, that is, about 27 Ilia. weight, of'plum
into Yokohama, concealed in a case which was entered
at the Customs as containing scurvy grass, and
cochineal. The Japanese discovered the opium, and
prosecuted Mr. Hartley in the Sri ish Consular Court,
for an offence against a regulation of the Treaty
between Japan and Great Britain which provides that
" the importation of opium being prohibited, any
British vessel coming to Japan for the purpose
of trade and having more than three rattles'
weights of opium on board, the surplus
quantity may be seized an I destroyed by the Japanese
antliorltles, and any person or persona smuggling or
attempting to sninggle opium shill be liable to pay a
fine of fifteen dollars for each c.tty of opium so
smuggled, or attempted to be smuggled." No words
could well be plainer than these; but legal ingenuity
found a road through them. It was pleaded for the
defence that the object of the Treaty wan to protect
Japan Wainer opialm•smokiog ; that opium prepared
for smoking is different from that used in
medicine, and that the smuggled opium was
intKlicinaL The learned judge, a Mr.
Witkinson, accepted, and imdrovel upon, this
plea. "Smoking opium" is, according to Afe.
Wilkinson, one thing, medicinal opium another. The
' Treaty, not specifying which is meant, must be inter.
pretest according to the well-known intent of its
authors. Thetefore medicinal opium is not alluded to
in the Treaty, and on this ground the ju Ige dismissed
the case. Evidence MAI tendered in court that the
difference between smoking opium and medicinal
opium is in form rather than in substance ; and
, that medicinal opium could easily be prepared for the
pipe. The decision given is an alarming one, because,
if it is confirmed, the whole value of the rr.e.ty
regulation which excludes opium from Japan will be
annibil.ted. The Japanese Government cannot be
pleaael at the discovery that its Treaty right to
prohibit opium is liable to an interpretation which
makes it so much waste taper. Our surprise at the
British Judge's acceptance of Mr. Hartley's defence is
not lessened by the inf.wmation that in a second CMS
he same man was convicted of attempting to smuggle
"smoking opium." The case has been brought to the
attention of the Marquis of Salisbury by the Anglo-
Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium
Trade, and his Lordship boa replied that Her
Majesty's Minister in Japan will be instructed to
report on the subject.

•
WANDERING NEEDLES.
The vagaries of needles which have been introduced
in the body, and have escaped immediate removal,
have in all ages attracted the attention of collectors of
the marvellous in medicine. Hi!deur related an
instance of a woman who swallowed several pins, and
pasted them six years afterwards; but a more remark-
able instanoe of prolonged detent on was lately
recorded by Dr. Stevenson, of Detroit—that of • lady,
aged 75, who last year pared, by the urethra, after
some months' symptoms of vesic.al irritation, a pin
which she had swallowed while picking her teeth with
it in the year 1835-42 years previously. Occasional
in the throat was the only immediate symptom,
but in 1845 she warn mixed with *ewers gastric pain,
which pared away, and she had no further symptoms
until lisematuris in 1876. This curious tolerance of
such foreign bodies exhibited
_hi the tissues is often
observed lunatic asylums. AL hairy recorded some
years ago the car of • woman who had a penchant for
pins and needles so strong that she made them, in
effect, part of her daily diet, and, after her death,
fourteen or fifteen hundred were removed from various
Lparts of the body. Another case, almost as striking,
as been recorded by Dr. Gillette—that of • girl In
whom, from time to time. needles were found beneath
the skin, which they perforated, and were removed by
the fingers or forceps. Concerning the way in which
they had got into her system no information could
be extracted from her. She was carefully watched,
and in the course of eighteen months no less than 3a)
needles were extracted all being of the same airn
Most were black and oxhidised, but some had retained
theirpolish, The majority were unbroken. They
out of various parts of the body above the
druhrsgm at regular intervals, but in • sort of series,
and alwaye in the same direction. Most escaped in the
region of the left nipple, and a few escaped in the arm, auxins, thigh, temple, and cheek. Sometimes several pared out of the same opening. The largest number which escaped in a single day was 61. A curio's. pheno-
menon preceded the escape of each needle. For some
hours tin pain was severe, and there was considerable
fever. She then felt • sharp pain, like lightning, in
the tissue., and on looking at the place at whioh this
Nan had been felt, the bead of the needle was generally
found projecting. The needles invariably came out
head foremost No bleeding was or msioned, and not
the least trace of inflammation followed. The doctor
in attendance extracted 318. They were sometimes held firmly, and seemed to be contained in a sort of
indurated canal. It was conjectured that they had
been swallowed with suicidal intentions, but on the
other hand, the way in which the needles escaped in
series, and their direction with the head outwards,
suggested that they had been introduced through
the skin. That little weight ia to be attached to the
place at which the needles escape as proof of their
mode of introduction ia evident from a case recorded by Wien of a girl who swallowed a large number of
pins and needles, and two years afterwards, during a
period of nine months, two hundred passed out of the
hand, arm, axilla, side or thorax, omen, and thigh,
all on the left side. The pins, curiously enough,
MOM readily and with less pain than 44
=ai Many years ago • car was recorded by Dr.
Otto, of Copenhagen, and mentioned at the time it the Lancet, in which 395 needles pared through the
skin of an hysterical girl who had probably swallo then, srod em during an hysterical paroxysm; but thee" all
emerged in the regions below the level of the diaphragm,
and were collected in groups, which gave rise to
innmatorswellings of some sine, One of these
contained 1 needles. Quite recently Dr. Bigger described before the Society of Surgery of Dublin •
ess-• in which more than 800 ntedlee were removed
froin the body of roam woo had died in con/Nurse'
of thole
presence. It is very remarkable in how few
of the cars the needles were the WIWI of death, and
how slight an intertwines with function their preeenoe
and movement cause. From time to time their detection by • magnetic needle is propoeed as novelty ; as Dr. Gillette reminds us, this umbehod
was _ by Nees nearly 40 yeurs ago, sod big
caw been edePted daos.-10140,