Suicide By Ammonia

No poison brings death with more maddening agony than ammonia, but that f act does not seem to discourage the suicide. The man Harrowitz, who deliberately swallowed a fatal dose of the drug in New York recently, is only one of the many who have gone the ammonia route to death in spite of the excruciating pain. Dr. Blyth has recorded thirty cases of ammonia poisoning in the small London district of which he is health offlcer; Professor Mitchell mentions twenty-two cases, and four have oecurred during the short time Dr. Jenkins has been connected with the coroner's office in New York. i, Cases of slow poisoning f rom ammonia are of constant occurrence among men who work in its manufacture, or even in decomposing substances which give it off in considerable quantities. Ammonia, slowly and from day to day taken into the system, causes the complexion to lose its freshness, and the skin of men who get heavily impregnated with.it has a dis. agreeably blotched and discolored appearance. Taken into the stomach from day to day in even the small quantities used to adultérate food, such as baking powder, it not only injures the complexion but attacks the lining of the stomach, and is the source of muck general ill health. The recent rapid increase in the use of ammonia for various purposes, and the consequent increase in its manufacture, have made it one of the most easily obtained poisons, and, although everybody is familiar with it in -soine form, there is a surprising amount of ignorance of ;ts dangerous qualities. lts use as an adulterant in any food preparation is simply a crime, and as a crime should be punished.