EXTRAORDINARY ACTION BY A LADY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2462, 21 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

EXTRAORDINARY ACTION BY A LADY.

A very curious litigation is listed for hearing in the Loudon law courts shortly. Some two years ago a North London doctor, having a largo family practice, had on his list of patients a lady long suffering from an affliction of the face and jaw which baffled the arts of the f'.culty. She had been for some time under his care when she changed her residence from London to Newcastle-on-Tyne, but kept herself in the hands of her London doctor by letter. Finding the ailment obstinate and t.ho patient rime what intractable and hypochondriacal, the doctor wrote in the end, saying he had exhausted his resources, and adding his opinion that the ctla.v rcnun was the only remedy. The dead language was matter in the wrong place. It proved a snare, for the lady hired herself off to a local chemist, and applied for the specific as set forth in the letter. The attendant it will be through deliberate dishouestv, made up a bottle for which he charged 7s Od, and, at the patient's request, registered or pretended to registrar, her name in the shop book as a customer to whom the remedy was to be regularly supplied. She continued usingand paying for the sham medicine for over a year and a-half; and a curious 1 lint in the case will be her admission that it gave her more ro'ief than any previous remedy employed, Coming to London for the "royal Jubilee, she chanced to meet her former doctor, who, it, should bo said, had told her in his letter that, being unable to do more for her, he did not feel justified in continuing the correspondence. He was astonished to find nimself gratefully thanked for his final advieo, and still more astonished when the lady related the facts. lie wrote at once for an explanation, and advk-1 the patient to demand the return of the large sum she had paid in fancy prices for the nostrum. The next stage of the business began with the disappearance of the assistant, and the denial of any responsibility by the chemist. On these main facts the case is based, but some remarkable revelations of the human capacity for consuming doctor's stuff may be expected. The plaintiff has, it seems, been an invalid from her twentieth year, and has for the quarter of a centnry intervening paid for medicine alone over £2000.