ADDENDA


From the archives: Fatal self-confidence


A CENTURY ago prescribing errors no doubt posed a greater risk to patients than today – and sometimes even to doctors. An article in The Scotsman newspaper from September 1899 reports on an inquest into the death of Dr John Dick at Eastbourne in Sussex. The doctor had been called out to the home


of Mrs Greer. No reference is made to the pretext of the visit but he brought along a liquid medicine that he had made up in his dispensary. Later at a subsequent visit Mrs Greer complained that the medicine had made her ill. She testified that on taking the solution she had felt like a “peg-top rolling around” and then had lost consciousness with her muscles “drawn up like a crowbar”. Mrs Greer gave the medicine back to Dr Dick saying it was


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poison and this made the doctor angry. He insisted there was nothing wrong with it and to prove this he drank some. Miss Catherine Dick – the doctor’s sister –


reported that on his return to the surgery he fell against the street door. She found him there foaming at the mouth and staring wildly. He gasped: “My God. I believe I have been poisoned.” Miss Dick brought out the stomach pump and then ran to fetch a neighbouring doctor. On her return Dr Dick said: “Tell him it’s strychnine poisoning. I feel sure by the symptoms.” Efforts to save Dr Dick failed and the cause of death was determined to be “congestion of the


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vital organs by the action of strychnine, probably on the nervous system”. In the time he was still coherent Dr Dick insisted he had made no error in formulating the medicine. An expert witness later testified at the inquest that the deceased must have mistaken a bottle containing a solution of strychnine for another almost identical bottle containing chloroform water – a constituent routinely used in some oral solutions. He added that the bottle dispensed contained sufficient strychnine to kill 12 people. The jury in the inquest returned a verdict of misadventure though Miss Dick still insisted that her brother had made no mistake.


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ACROSS 1. Nags (8) 4. Cause of infection (4) 8. Latin American chaplains (6) 9. Painful swelling on toe (6) 11. Kettledrums (7) 12. Memorise (5) 14. Pertaining to something that effects a closure (9)


16. Sharp pains (5) 17. Waste away (7) 20. ______ scream, band (6) 21. Mutate into new form (6) 22. Broad ribbon (4) 23. Drugs used to treat inflammation (8)


DOWN 1. Inflammation of the liver (9) 2. Type of diabetes (abbr.) (5) 3. Solution introduced into rectum (5)


5. Remove hairs (7) 6. Males (3) 7. Central parts (6) 10. In name only (7) 13. Recently married people (9) 14. Reproductive glands (7) 15. Computerised axial tomography (abbr.) (2,4)


18. Default dog name (5) 19. Insect sense organs (5) 20. Purulent fluid (3)


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


22 Object obscura:


Scarificator THIS six-bladed scarificator was made in France around 1900 and used to create wounds on the surface of the skin for wet-cupping – a form of bloodletting. It employed a spring- loaded mechanism with gears to snap the blades out through slits in the front cover. Blood-letting was still used by some doctors up until the early 20th century to treat a range of ailments by removing surplus bodily “humuors”.


SUMMONS


PHOTOGRAPH: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY


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