The Express.
London, England, 1866-11-30 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

(THIS DAY.)

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
After Term Nisi Prins sittings at Westminster.—(Before
the Lord Chief Justice and Special Juries.)
HPICTER V. SHARPE—LIBEL.
The further hearing of this case, which is an action for
libel against the Pall Mall Gazette, was resumed this

morning.
Mr. Coleridge, Q.C., Mr. Serjeant Parry, Mr. flume
waltsms, and Mr. C. Hoey, were counsel for the plaintiff ;
Mr. Kerslake, Q.C., Mr. Quain, Q.C., and Mr. Fitzjarues
Stephen were counsel for the defendant.
Dr. Markham—l am a fellow of the Royal College of
physicians and a member of the Pathological Society, a
physician of St. Mary's Hospital, &c., and the author of
some medical works. I have read the plaintiff's book.
It gives a theory of the nature and a treatment of consump-
tion. I think his theory untenable. There is no such
thing as a deposit of carbon in the lungs in consumption.
The treatment is impossible. No amount of oxygen
would have any effect on carbon as instanced in what
is known as the black or miner's lung. There is
no information in the book how to administer oxygen.
Dr. Hunter, in his evidence, gave no further infor-
mation as to tho production of oxygen according to
the old fashioned mode of producing it. The
book affords no information as to treatment. Inhalation
was used 30 years ago when I was a student in a country
hospital, but not with oxygen then ; medical literary
history is against its use as being mischievous. We have now
more drugs than we know what to do with, and I have
no wish to introduce it. It is well known that iodine,
stramonium, and conium are very beneficial in asthma',
and frequently used. The patients produced by the plain.
tiff were good specimens of cures, but the profession can
produce as equally good a number if not more. I agree
with the evidence of the medical witnesses examined yes-

birds!.
Cross-examined by Mr. Coleridge—There is no differ-
ence of opinion as to the composition of tubercle,
though there might be as to the exact component
p It is • question of analysis. There is
onlyarts. lor 1. of difference as to the quantity of carbon. It
is necessary to purify the blood of too much carbonc
acid gas by the introduction of oxygen into it. Plaintiff's
method does not introduce oxygen ; the introduction of
oxygen into the blood is very beneficial. lam not sure
the lungs can take up more oxygen than they do in ordi-
nary breathing. None of the ordinary methods used by
the plaintiff give out oxygen. It is a mistake to say that
nitrate of pouts' and chloride of potass when
burned evolve oxygen. Nitrate of potaas burnt in
• bedroom gives benefit to persons suffering from
asthma. I can bring you twenty patients from
the hospital who have have been treated by others without
success, but I have cured them. Perhaps that would not
be the case with 100 consecutive patients, and it would
apply equally to Dr. Hunter's patients.
-Dr. George Johnson, M.D., of University College
Hospital, am of opinion that the plaintiff's
theory cannot be maintained. Undoubted facts are
opposed to it. I concur entirely with Dr. Williams
and the other medical men who have been examined.
I have had no experience in the administration of oxygen
for consumption, and I doubt if it would be beneficial. If
largely given it might prove prejudicial by causing excite li
-
ment in the patient. It is physically impossible for bleed-
ing to take place without the rupture of a blood-vessel,
though Dr. Hunter says it can. The plaintiff's remedies
for chronic laryngitis are not local, as lie represents, and
I am surprised that the writer has made no mention of
the laryngoscope, by which means the professional
man can get a view of the interior of the throat and
apply local remedies with the greatest precision. (The
witness was examined upon the various extracts of the
book, and the opinions expressed by the other medical
witnesses, which be confirmed.)
Cross-examined--The blood-vessels have no pores
through which the blood might ooze out. It was supposed
so by eminent men, but the microscope has shown there
are no pores, and no microscopic observer would now make
such a statement as the plaintiff has in his book.
Dr. Quoin, M.D. and F.R.C.P.—I would not presume
to define the plaintiff's theory as laid down in his book. If
the plaintiff had ever seen tubercular deposits and the
agents to be used, he would never have written what he
bad about it.
Dr. Wm. Odling, F.R.S.P., and lecturer on chemistry at
St. Bartholomew's Hospital—Tubercles contain about the
same quantity of carbon as is contained in all the other
tissues, like a rump steak. Some say there is more,
bet it is so slight when analysed that I pay no attention
to it. Atmospheric air contains rather more than 20 per
cent. of oxygen ; in 400 cubic inches of air there are SO
inches of oxygen inspired a minute, or equal to three
cubic feet per hour. In deep and rapid respiration the
quantity might be increased tenfold, and by doubling the
respiration in aminute you would double that. The inhala-
tion of fouror five gallons of oxygen more or less in 24 hours
is an insignificant quantity in comparison with the total
quantityinspirml. It might be about 1 per cent. Chloric
acid is not in the pharmacopoeia ; it is only used in the
manufacture of substances for making fireworks ; it has
never been used medicinally that I know of ; if used at
all it must be useml in secret ; the strong solution of chloric
acid is very explosive, burning and charring substances ; it
sets fire to paper immediately. Strong chloric acid when
boiled gives off oxygen and chlorine gases in proportion of
three of oxygen to two of chlorine. Inhaling oxygen some
of the chlorine must he inhaled also. Chlorine is very
irritating even when the chloric acid is diluted ; one half
per cent. of the air inspired would contain chlorine ; if you
get it below that it might be and has been breathed, and
as you dilute the chlonne so you would dilute the oxygen ;
8.5 grains of absolute carbonic acid equal to a drop of water
would give off 3.'0. cubic inches of oxygen. If any tinctures
are used with it it will not throw off an atom of oxygen ;
the blood in consumption contains leas carbon and more
oxygen than the blood in health. Pure carbon is not in-
imical to life, but what has passed through the system
and become oxygenised is inimical to life. Pure oxygen
can be inhaled ; there is no oxygen inhaled from chloric
acid.
By the Lord Chief Justice—Oxygen would have no effect
upon the tubercles.
This was the defendant's case.
Mr. Karslake, in addressing the jury, said he did not
mean to say that if Dr. Hunter had propounded a theory
which ho chose to give to the public in the ordinary and
professional forms, even if it was without foundation, it
would have been the subject of such a strong article, but
now that they had the advertisements and the book before
them, the advertisements containing carefully selected
passages likely to create terror if others were not after-
wards taken to allay it—the whole scheme and scope of
the letters was to make out that Dr. Hunter had
either discovered something or had systematised some-
thing comparatively unknown before. Dr. Hunter by
those letters mule it appear that he had made pulmonary
diseases his speciality, and that no other man was capable
of dealing with them but himself—that an honourable
profession was so }dented and ignorant with reference to the
treatment of those diseases that the public ought not to go
to them. There could be no doubt that the plaintiff
published his letters for the purpose of alluring patients
to his house, he having excited so much terror in their
minds, and a belief that he was the only person who
could cure them. A part of the plaintiff's system ap-
peared to be that by blowing, as it were,
with a blow-pipe on the carbon in the lungs he could cure
consumption, and in announcing it to the public he had
made use of gross exaggeration, which could only havebeen
done for one object. The public mind was prepared by the
book how he would treat his patients, and that consumption
and its cognates were considered by the profes-
sion incurable, beyond the reach of medicine
and human skill, quoting Sir James Clark in
confirmation of that assertion ; but in another part
he quoted Sir .lames Clark that pulmonary complaints
were possible of being cured, and then he sets forth what
he called his system, at the arum time depreciating the
recognised professional treatment of this most
fatal disease. The learned counsel read various passages
in the book, in one of which the profession were
charged with tampering with life. It was not to be sur-
prised that 8001. had been spent by the plaintiff in the pur-
chase of drugs to he used in his various decoctiors.
because could they conceive anything more likely
than those advertisements to excite tenor in the minds
of those who read them! If rich persons, they would imagine
that the family physician had neglected every symptom
which he ought to have observed, and if poor,
that it was useless of them to go to an ordinary medical
man or time parish doctor, because they were only
tampering with human life. Then they were told
they should have recourse to a medical man
who wade the disease a speciality, and that man
was Dr. Hunter, who alone, and by devoting exclusive at-
tention to the diseases, was able to deal with them
with any hopes of success. Throughout the book,
and mixed up in every advertisement, there was
some vilification of tae medical profession. Having pre
Ned the mind to suspect the medical profession,
he goes on and addresses himself tai the old and
the young, the plump young women and the
lean, and the mothers of children, all of whom
had symptoms every winter which ho would lead
them to believe were consumption or something very like
it. Then he charged the profession with treating their
patients with cruelty in endeavouring to effect a
cure, but which only resulted in temporary relief. The
book was written for an object, not for Cm
u.rpol eof informing the public truly as to the symptoms.
Its cures were sa sudden that like the man in the adver-
tisement for the cure of the toothache his patients were
able rejoicingly to throw away the bottle and exclaim,
cured in an iustant." (Laughter.)
(The case
-was proceeding when our report left.]

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.
Bitting' st Nisi Prins in Middlesex.—(Before Lord Chief

Justice Boyd.' and a Special ury.)
The new Lord Chief Justice. Sir Wm. Bovill, took his
sect this morning, but there was no ceremony of any kind.
The first case eAlle,l on was " Bell v. Aitken," which was
an action for the infringement of a patent for improve-
ments in machinery for making zebra cloth, an article
Which is supplied to Turkey and other Eastern countries.
The details were, as usual in such oases, of an uninterest-
ing character.