on the second chromatogram will show up mixtures of morphine and amphetamine or morphine and chlorpromazine. Discussion It must be remembered that nearly 1,000 basic drugs are available, either legally or illegally. Most of these give a positive reaction with the iodoplatinate solution. Many of them give colours with the Marquis reagent.11 Only the more important drugs of abuse and a few common tranquillizers have been included in Table I. Should other basic compounds assume a position of importance their characteristics can be determined for inclusion in the scheme. Further reagents may be added if this becomes necessary. It must be emphasized that this method is in no way a substitute for normal toxicological analysis, and its results would not serve as legal proof in court. Owing to its speed and simplicity it should, however, be of service in providing confirmation of clinical or circumstantial evidence under conditions where normal laboratory facilities are not available.

The name, sex, age, address, certified cause of death, and place of death of all those people normally resident in the area who died in the six-year period following 1 January 1960 were obtained from the county medical officer of health. The marital state of these people and the identity of those of their close relatives who also lived in the area were determined with the help of the practice secretaries and the secretary of the local cottage hospital. Those people were considered close relatives who were either a spouse, parent, child, or sibling. Those people who had no close relatives alive when they died were excluded from the survey. The remainder were matched by age, sex, and marital state with a similar control group known to have relatives living in the area. This was done by arbitrarily selecting alternate names from the relevant age/sex lists of the practice age/sex register. It was not found possible to match all the paired couples exactly for age or marital state, and five widowed people were paired with people still married. The identity of the close relatives of the control group was deter-

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