ADDENDA Object obscura: card notice and surgeon’s waistcoat


THIS card notice and satin waistcoat belonged to the surgeon Henry Hill Hickman (1800-1830). He was an early pioneer of anaesthesia and studied medicine at Edinburgh University before setting up practice in Ludlow in Shropshire. Here he conducted controversial experiments on animals using carbon dioxide as an anaesthetic agent. He died of tuberculosis at age 30 with his work largely unrecognised.


Crossword


From the archives: the case of the missing teeth


DENTAL phobia in children adds risk to any treatment – even with careful reassurance and modern anaesthetics. Spare a thought though for dentists operating a century ago. In 1907 the Guardian published an account of a court case in Manchester in which negligence was alleged in the treatment of an eight-year- old girl named Frances Harriet. Te girl worked aſter school in her widowed mother’s grocery shop. On August 30 Frances was taken to a local dental practice to have several teeth removed. Her mother told the dentist – Mr Grundy – that if gas were used, three teeth might be removed; otherwise only one. Te Guardian correspondent writes: “No anaesthetic was administered, but while the girl was seated on an ordinary chair three teeth were taken out. Te girl screamed, and began to cough. Only one of the teeth could be found aſter extraction, and when the defendant’s attention was called to this fact he accounted for it by saying that his pup must have been in the room and picked the others up. He accounted for the cough by saying that the girl had probably swallowed a little blood.” Mrs Harriet later testified that she had not seen a dog in the


ACROSS


2. Inflammatory condition of the lung (9)


8. Poisonous metalloid (7) 9. Cervical screening test (5) 10. Female gonad (5)


11. Softening of bones from vitamin deficiency (7)


13. They focus light in the eye (6)


15. Constitutes 55 per cent of blood (5)


18. Epileptic fit (7) 20. Painful muscle contraction (5) 21. Spherical bacteria (5) 22. Frankness (7)


23. Collections of pus in tissue cavities (9)


DOWN 1. Scorn (7) 2. Copper coin (5) 3. Repeat performance (6) 4. Melodic (7) 5. Uncle’s daughter (5)


6. Other means of settling legal disputes (abbr.) (3)


7. He sat beneath a precarious sword (7)


12. Photographers (8) 14. Learned (adj) (8) 16. Harbour town (7)


17. Encloses or handles stolen goods (5)


19. Ancient Peruvians (5) 20. Ice-cream holders (5)


21. No-win, no-fee, for instance (abbr.) (3)


See answers online at www.mddus.com. Go to the Notice Board page under News and Events.


22


room. She paid Mr Grundy his fee but protested that he had been “hard” on the girl. Te dentist agreed and gave Frances thruppence for a bottle of ginger beer. On reaching home the girl complained of a pain her chest. A day later she became delirious with fever and a doctor was summoned. Given the symptoms he concluded that a tooth must have slipped down the girl’s throat as she gasped or screamed during the extraction. Te girl’s condition quickly deteriorated and she later died from pneumonia. No post-mortem examination was carried out. A lawyer for the


dentist suggested that Frances had already developed bronchial pneumonia as a consequence of the abscesses in her mouth – and this rather than a swallowed tooth led to her death. But a medical expert called as a witness expressed his strong view that the child’s death was “due to the passage of a portion of a tooth into the trachea, setting up septic pneumonia”. No further details are given as to the outcome of the case.


SUMMONS


PHOTOGRAPH: SCIENCE & SOCIETY


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