POISONED IN MISTAKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2356, 17 November 1921, Page 1

POISONED IN MISTAKE.

DEATH OP THREE PATIENTS,

CONFESSION OF A DOCTOR

The dramatic admission by a doctor that he had given belladonna instead of cascara to nine patients was made at an inquest held on three inmates of Powiek Lunatic Asylum, Worcestershire, who died of poisoning. Dr. Alexander O’Flaerty, who gave evidence with great emotion, said that he mixed nine aperients of what he thought to he glycerine and cascara.

“But they must have been glycerine and belladonna,” he declared. “Do you admit that you made a mistake?” asked the coroner.

“Yes, sir,” replied Dr. O’Flaerty, “I never expected that belladonna would be there with castor oil and simple things like that. It-never occurred to me there was anything poisonous in the row of bottles.” Dr. Fenton, the medical superintendent of the asylum, said that he found nine patients suffering from belladonna poisoning, and that two of them were in a state of coma.

“I gave them emetics and antidotes,” he added, “and Dr. O’Flaerty, who had been attending the patients, and I examined the bottles from which they had taken a purgative draught. “From previous experience of his services I regard Dr. O’Flaerty as a most experienced, reliable, and skilful doctor, and even now I have no cause to withdraw that opinion.”

Dr. Fenton pr oil need bottles which had contained belladonna and cascara. They were exactly similar, except that the belladonna bottle was labelled “Poison.” The jury returned a verdict of death from misadventure.