A STRANGE CASE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1349, 29 January 1912, Page 4

A STRANGE CASE.

• » •• NOTHING SIMILAR HEARD OF. Before the City Coroner (Dr. A. M'Ar. thur, S.M.) on Saturday morning, there was resumed .the ino.uo.sv. into the circumstances siirroiiiidmj; thu death of Gertrude Slovens, otherwise Madame Karl;-, who had k>oll employed at Messrs. 'Kirkc.'Hlie and Stain?, Ltd. Sergeant. C. Kelly represented the police. Madame Karle was taken ill in the street on election night and was subsequently removed to a private hospital in Davi's street where she expired some days later. When the iiujiie-.t was opened Dr. Fyfie k<l vo if as his vpiniuji that death was due to haemolysis of the blood, with acute inflammation of the kidneys. The ill finest was then adjourned to allow of an analysis. Dr. Mnclaiirin, Dominion Analyst, who made an analysis of tho contents of the stomach of deceased, stated that the. amount of apiol in the stomach could not have been more (lion one-third of the amount contained in one of Steam's wafers, which doeeiiseil was said to have token. Poisons may have been absorbed inlo the blood, in which case they could not be detected by his analysis. Witness was not a mediral man and could not state tlir , cruise of death.

Dr. W. TCiiu'toli Fyffe, recalled, deposed to having experimented on a .guinea pig with some of the.strongest anioloids found in the room of deceased. The drug had no effect. Witness a.greed with Dr. Maclaiirin that poisons may have been absorbed inlo the blood. Ho attributed tho condition of deceased's body to some poison, for he knew of no disease that would, correspond with what was found in deceitsrd's body, JTo did not think the apioloids caused death.

To Sergeant Kelly: A good dea.l of the poison may have been got rid of by vom'iting. Witness Hail never seen or read of a enso. similar to this.

A verdict was returned in accordance with the- medical testimony, the coroner remarking that it was a very peculiar case indeed. It did not concern him as a layman to offer any opinion beyond what the medical evidence showed. Ho might remark, however, that ctaith was apparently brought, about- by the indiscriminate use of drugs. There was no suspicion that poison had been administered by anyone else or that deceased had wilfully done anything to deprive herself of life.