OXYGEN GAS FOR SCIATICA

Evening Star, Issue 22440, 10 September 1936, Page 14

OXYGEN GAS FOR SCIATICA

INJECTION TREATMENT PROVES FATAL [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, September 9. Following the death on June 18 of a patient in the Auckland Hospital named Harry Manning Moore, better known as Harry Glover, a labourer, aged 34, an inquest was held to-day before Mr W. R. M‘Kean, S.M., coroner. The deceased injured his leg and was admitted to the Auckland Hospital for treatment for sciatica. The pathologist at the Auckland Hospital, Dr W. Gilmour, said that in a post-mortem examination a considerable amount of gas was found in the body. The technique of the injections given to the deceased ’had been properly carried out. The result of tho treatment in the deceased’s case was wholly unexpected. Leister Hammond Aitkcn,, a final-year medical student at the hospital, said he gave flic routine treatment of injection in the region of the affected nerve. Witness bad given the same treatment on four previous occasions. No text book contained any statement as to the actual quantity of gas to bo injected.

To the coronen Gas treatment was, not new. The hospital adopted an additional precaution to that set out in the text books by passing the gas through a bottle of water. Unfortunately things unexpectedly went wrong, although all the usual precautions were taken. After tho light injection which had been given on the previous evening one would not expect any danger from the injection next day. A verdict was returned that death was due to gas embolism following an injection of oxygen gas in accordance with the accepted technique for the treatment of sciatica