TOOTH IN A LUNG.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 9

TOOTH IN A LUNG.

STRANGE ACCIDENT DURING OPERA- • TION. ; Remarkable ; evidence, was given, at .Lambeth. Coroner's Court on July. 21 regarding the death of Mrs. Mary; Sarah. Daking, or Clapham, subsequent to a; dental operation. The deceased attended-• Guy's Hospital on June 17 to have three teeth extracted, and afterwards beoamo ill, and died on July 18. ' Dr. Payne, the dental surgeoii who had charge of the case at. Guy's Hospital, said that on the second, extraction he'missed the tooth. A .careful examination of the air passages disclosed nothing on which they ■ could act. • The Coroner: Was any note of the circumstances of the missing tooth taken?— Witness : I noted it in my private book. Why was not an entry made in the hospital book?— That was. an inadvertence. Whose duty would it be to enter it?— The dresser's duty. . Dr. Philip Turner, aaaesthetist in ; the dental department of Guy's Hospital,stated that after one or two extractions he heard Mr. Payne say, "Where has ..that tooth 1 gone?" The tooth was sought for, but was not found. The Coroner: Ton had to assume the possibility of the patient... having swallowed it?— Quite so. Do you think any besides yourselves wero aware .of the tooth being missing?— Well, the dresser must have known. A daughter of the deceased said, nothing seemed to bo known by .her mother as to the swallowing of the tooth. . Dr. Trevor, of St. George's Hospital, said death was due to heart failure whilst suffering from gangrene of the lung and . scptio pneumonia, consequent upon the lodgment nf ■ the tooth' in tho lung. Tho Coroner, in summing up, said it w.ns evident that tho operation was performed by a' gentleman of groa;t experience, but. it was unfortunate that tho fact of tho tooth being missing was not reported, so that when tho deceased saw othor doctors at the hospital they did not know, of what probably had happened. Tho jury returned. a verdict of "Accidental death," and expressed a view that a record should have been made in tho official hospital book of the fact that the tooth was missing.

Unless tho British Government walco up and realise that tho result of the flight of Count Zeppelin may possibly mean tho total alteration of the map of Europe beforo many years are over, let alono necessitating tho expenditure of much money upon protective defences, they will deserve to be execrated by posterity should anything go wrong.— Lord-Montagu, in the "Car/*- * I