From a letter by Dr. Murrell to this week's Lancet,
it appears that Dr. Sydney Ringer had no share in the responsibility for the experiments, of which we gave a brief account last week, on the poisonous effects of nitrite of sodium. As a matter of fact, Dr. Ringer, we believe, had never read the article in which Dr. Marvell's experiments are recorded, having contributed only some of the literature of the subject in relation to the past use of nitrite of sodium as a drug. Further, Dr. Murrell maintains that considerably larger doses of nitrite of sodium bad been given, with no harmful and even with good effect, in former cases, to patients suffering from the affections for which he treated -them, and that he had no means of knowing that the nitrite used by him was much purer and more potent than the nitrite formerly prescribed and taken without hurt in these still larger doses. All this, however, Dr. Murrell should have stated clearly. No one could have read his former article, and not supposed that he was deliberately urging his patients to take doses of nitrite of sodium which, if not dangerous, were, at least, most painful and alarming.
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