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From the pocket of the partition he took a little bottle of chloral hydrate, a drug which he was in the habit of using when insomnia pressed heavily upon him, as it periodically did. The chloral was in five-grain tabloids. His usual dose was three tabloids or fifteen grains. He now counted twenty tabloids into a tumbler, which he half filled with water.
In the closet of the room hung the clothes of Brenton, and going through them Stratton found in the vest pocket of one of the suits a small box containing what was described as five-grain capsules of sulphate of quinine. The doctor tore one of these capsules apart, so as to see what was in it. Without a moment's hesitation he said "There you are! That is the morphia.
"Well, old man," he said, "anything new?" "Yes, sir. Something very new." "What have you found out?" "Everything." "Very well, let me have it." "I found out that this man bought, on December 10th, thirty grains of morphia. He had this morphia put up in five-grain capsules. He bought this at the drug store on the corner of Blank Street and Nemo Avenue." "Good gracious!" answered Stratton.
A man in the next bed to him might have been taking breadcrumbs for all effect it produced. With him, however, it worked like clockwork. No sooner was a five-grain dose swallowed than the temperature stopped in its upward course.
Then you can put those two into one scale, and a piece of lead as big as both of them into the other scale, and when you have made it exactly as heavy as both of the others, you must mark a figure 2 upon it, and then you will have a two-grain weight. In the same way you can make a five-grain weight, and a ten-grain weight, and a pennyweight." "What is a pennyweight?" said Rollo.
"Here it is." He took a small leather case from his pocket, opened it, and drew out a short blue glass tube, with a screw top. It contained half a dozen white tablets, apparently just like those in common use for five-grain doses of quinine. A little murmur of disappointment went around the table. The new form of death looked very commonplace. Corbario was the only one who showed any interest.
Thus, the fortieth part of a grain of calomel was supposed to be equal to a five-grain calomel pill, and so on in proportion throughout the whole range of medicine. He had tried the experiment in a curious manner upon a publican who had been brought into the hospital with a broken head, and was cured upon the infinitesimal system in the incredibly short space of three months.
Thirty grains put up in five-grain capsules." George Stratton's eyes began to open. Then he slowly rose, and looked with horrified face at the doctor. "My God!" he cried; "who got the thirty grains of morphia?" "What do you mean?" asked the doctor. "Mean? Why, don't you see it? It is a chemist's mistake. Thirty grains of quinine have been sent you.
If, however, you keep conscientiously rolled in your blanket until the perspiring stage is well over, and stay in bed till the next morning, the chances are you will be all right, though a little shaky about the legs. You should continue the quinine, taking it in five-grain doses, up to fifteen to twenty grains a day for a week after any attack of fever, but you must omit the opium pill.
With practised touch he rearranged the three worn walnut-shells which constituted his stock in trade. Beneath one of them he deftly concealed a pellet about the size of a five-grain allopathic pill. It was the erratic behavior of this tiny ball, its mysterious comings and goings, that had summoned Mr. Broad's audience and now held its observant interest.
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