Morrison and Another v Harmer and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1837 |
| Date | 01 January 1837 |
| Court | Court of Common Pleas |
English Reports Citation: 132 E.R. 603
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
S. C. 4 Scott, 524; 3 Hodges, 108.
morrison and another v. harmer and another. 1837. [S. C. 4 Scott, 524; 3 Hodges, 108.] To an action for libelling plaintiffs, in their business of sellers of medicines, by publishing that Defendants had crushed the hygeist system of wholesale poisoning pursued by the scamps and rascals, the Defendants pleaded and proved the conviction of two of the vendors of Plaintiffs' pills for manslaughter : Held, that the plea was sufficient, and sufficiently proved, though it did not justify the words scamps and rascals, and though one of the victims died notwithstanding he had taken fewer pills than the vendor recommended; it appearing that a larger number would only have accelerated his death. Held also, that it was not necessary for Defendants to shew they had completely crushed the system. To an action for a libel on the Plaintiffs in their trade and business as manufacturers and sellers of certain good, wholesome, and lawful medicines, called Morrison's Universal Vegetable Medicines, and for causing it to be believed that the said medicines were noxious, deleterious, and unwholesome, and that the Plaintiffs were in bad and insolvent circumstances, and incapable of paying their just and true debts, the Defendants pleaded,- as to so much of the said alleged libel as follows, that is to say,-" We may safely claim the merit of having crushed the self-styled hygeist system of wholesale poisoning, since we commenced exposing the homicidal tricks of these impudent and ignorant scamps who had the audacity to pretend to cure all diseases with one kind of pills, which pills were composed of nothing more or less than gamboge and aloes. Several of the rot-gut rascals have been convicted of manslaughter, and fined and imprisoned for killing people with enormous doses of their [760] universal vegetable boluses,"- that long before and at the time of the composing and publishing the said alleged libel in the introductory part of this plea mentioned, the Plaintiffs manufactured, compounded, and sold pills by them denominated " Morrison's Universal Vegetable Medicines," at the said building and place by them called the British College of Health, and also during that time styled and denominated themselves and others, who vended and administered the said pills, by the name and denomination of hygeists; that the Plaintiffs, during all the time aforesaid, and whilst they so manufactured and sold the said pills as aforesaid, were persons wholly ignorant and 604 MORRISON V. HARMER 3 BING. (N. C.)761. unskilled in the preparation and compounding of medicines, and utterly unfit to prescribe or administer medicines of any kind j that the said pills so manufactured and sold by the Plaintiffs were composed of certain medicinal substances called gamboge and aloes, both of which said substances were well known to chemists and medical men, and were in common and ordinary use, and one of which, that is to say, gamboge, when unskilfully compounded, was of a highly dangerous and poisonous nature; that the Plaintiffs, in order to deceive and delude ignorant and credulous persons, without any sanction or authority whatsoever, appropriated to themselves and used the name and title of hygeists, as denoting themselves to be persons skilled in promoting and preserving health, whilst, in truth and in fact, they, the...
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