VERONAL PERILS.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1925, Page 1

VERONAL PERILS.

LONDON, November I.j. An open verdict was returned at the impiest at Hammersmith yesterday on Ethel C hotrcuor, aged 11, wife of a judge in the Indian High Court, who died from veronal poisoning. Mr John Webster, the Home Office analyst, said from the condition of eertiain organs Mrs Ohotzner must have taken ten times the amount of veronal he had found in the body, •pearly 200 grains might have been taken. He attributed death to veronal poisoning. Sir William Wilcox, consulting medical officer to the Home Office, said the danger of the veronal group of poisons was not realised as it should he by the general public, or, lie was afraid, by the medical profession. In the public interest the veronal group was a class of drug which should he made subject to the restrictions of the Dangerous Drugs Act. in those who took it, it became a craving, and it proved a very definite form of mental degeneracy, causing delusions and inarticulate speech. The number of deaths from this poison was greater than the Registrar’s returns showed. Veronal was not considered dangerous because ot the circulars sent out saying that it was harmless. He had received similar ei/rculars' himself.