THE LATE INQUEST.

Evening Star, Issue 2952, 5 August 1872, Page 2

THE LATE INQUEST.

To the Editor.

Sir,— As a very large number of persons will form their opinions of this case from the report contained in your paper, 1 trust you will permit me to punt out a few errors and omissions that appear to me to be of some importance. Mr Macfie is reported to have said that he saw the deceased about midnight on Friday last, whereas it should have beeu “ about midday ” ; that the deceased stated “ he has killed me,” whereas it should have been “ it has killed me ” —meaning probably the disease, or, as the Coroner suggested, people often imagine when they suffer pain,' the medicine itself. Both Mr Macfie and Mrs Bowers were strongly prejudiced against me as a homoeopathic practitioner, but they were probably not aware that I hold the highest medical mialifioations. I do not observe in the report any mention of the state of the kidneys, although it was proved that one was diseased and very much contracted ; nor is any reference made to the state of the intestine called the colon, yet 1 belieV’ that perforation caused by disease in the ascending portion of this bowel was the immediate cause of death. This would account for the severe pain across the

chest, and especially on the right side which Mrs Simon stated the deceased had frequently complained of. Neither of the medical men who ma lc the post-mortem examination denied the existence of sloughing in that part of the bowel, although they were unwilling to admit it. Dr Harding’s evidence as summarised in your report gives, I think, a different color to the case from the evidence itself, and I regret that it was not published in extenso. He was for some time, I believe, an assistant Navy surgeon, and served in New Zealand, where of course everybody employed distinguishes himself in some way or other, and he boasts of twelve years’ experience; but except in a pseuliar class of complaints I do not know that he would derive any particular pre-eminence in medicine from his employment. . During eight months I paid every attention to the poor woman without receiving anything in payment. Some reflections were no doubt intended to be cast upon me by the statements that she had no domestic attendant ; that I was sometimes at her house late in the evening; and that I made her will. As to these I would shortly observe that the deceased was too poor to keep a servant or a nurse; that my visits were usually made between four and live o’clock in the afternoon ; and that although I wrote a memorandum of how she wished to dispose of her trifling property, which she signed, yet I took no benefit under it beyond my legal right to have my charges paid. Requesting that you will kindly give this insertion, —I remain, &c., T. Docking, Dunedin, August 2. [Our report of Mr Maclie’s evidence was substantially correct; and that of Dr Harding, as our report stated, simply corroborative of Dr A'exander’s, which was fairly reported. We never make it a practice of giving details of medical evidence, which is but imperfectly understood by the public. —Ed. E.B. ]