WHAT MAY HAPPEN TO A MAN IN THE AUCKLAND HOSPITAL.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 227, 17 January 1885, Page 3

WHAT MAY HAPPEN TO A MAN IN THE AUCKLAND HOSPITAL.

That a man who has been killed by lightning can be officially reported as having died from concussion of the brain, and hastily shovelled away out of sight, is not calculated to give rise to consoling reflections. It reminds us too much of the fashion that once prevailed in Texas, where a man who had died by the pistol or bowie-knife of an assassin was said by a sympathetic and intelligent jury to have "died by the visitation of God." The thing is unsatisfactory and calculated to give rise to awkward misgivings because of its suggestiveness. If these things are done in the green leaf, what may be done in the dry ? For example — and I only put it

by way of hypothesis — if a patient were to die of negligent or unskilful treatment while the house-surgeon was engaged in a game of cricket or lawn tennis, or in examining candidates for policies in the Equitable Life Assurance Society, would the Hospital authorities or the Coroner see any urgent necessity for holding an inquest, or for entering into details as to the actual cause of death? Or would there, on the other hand, seeing that dead men tell no tales, be a disposition to make things pleasant and comfortable for all parties concerned, and in the absence of lightning conductors, to attribute the patient's death to a stroke of lightning, concussion of the brain, heart disease, or some other innocent cause ?