POISON DEFENCE

Shannon News, 21 December 1926, Page 2

POISON DEFENCE

DOCTOR AND DRUNKEN NESS. OVERDOSE OF INSULIN. ■' . / . The defence that insulin poisoning had been mistaken for drunkenness was put forward at Marylebone Police Court by James Glover, 44, i physician, of Abbey Road, St. John’s Wood, N.W., when charged with being drunk in charge of his motor car and driving dangerously. Mr Muskett, prosecuting, stated that the doctor, driving along Abbey Road, about midnight, mounted the offside footway, ran along it for some distance, recrossed tlio road, ran into a lamp post, rebounded across the road, and came to rest against, a garden wall. Police Constable Symes spoke to him, and he then drove across the road into the lamp post he had just hit. The doctor said the steering gear was very stiff. The constable formed the opinion that he was drunk, and on the way to the police station the doctor fell to the ground and had to be assisted to his feet. / Dr. Greenwood, divisional surgeon, said that Glover was drunk. Cross-examined, he said the effects of .alcohol, very likely, were intensified by the addition of insulin. Glover, in evidence, said he was suffering not from drunkenness, but. from insulin poisohing, due to an overdose of that drug. Dr. J. D. Radcliffe, of ,41 Clarendon road, Southsea; Dr. O. L. V. de Wesselow, of St. Thomas’s Hospital; Dr. Jensen, of 56 Grosvenor street; and Glover’s brother, Dr. Edward Glover, of 6 Bcntinck street, stated that the symptoms of insulin poisoning might easily be mistaken for the symptoms of alcoholic poisoning. Dr. de Wesselow agreed with Mr Muskett that a motorist taking an overdose of Insulin after a meal was unfit to be in charge of a motorcar. Mr Canceller magistrate) found Glover guilty, and fiaod him £2O, with £lO 10s costs, or 31 days’ imprisonment, for being drunk, and £lO, or 21 days, for driving dangerously. He disqualified him from holding a license for 12 months. It was stated that an appeal would be lodged.