POISONED?

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 166, 13 July 1907, Page 13

POISONED?

GRAVE CHARGE AGAINST A, DOCTOR. Paris was towards the end of May In the throes of excitement over the mysterious death of Mdme. de Forain, wife of a physician. The latter's sister-in-law asserts "that he is the cause of his wtfe|3 death, having brought about her end by 2OISOD. Mdme. de Forain was formerly a nurse in a Paris hospital, and it was there she first met her husband, wiio was a medical student at the time. Her relatives opposed the match, so the young couple fled to England, and. were married there. When they returned to Paris M. de Forain set up a medical practice with £400 which his wife had. Meanwhile his mother had died, leaving him a fortune that placed him beyond the necessity of work. He thereupon renounced medicine, and the couple went to live in the suburb of Hontreuii-sur-Bois, where he intended to spend his days in gardening. Then came unhappiness, and divorce proceedings were instituted, without avail. After three years' separation. Mdme. de Forain returned to live with, her husband last October. A few days later she began to complain of feeling unwell. Her husband appeared concerned, and tended his wife apparently with the utmost devotion.

He himself made up prescriptioiis for his wife, who told her sister that they onlj made her worse, and finally she wan taken to hospital. Recovering, aiie returned home in January. M. de Poraia coutinued to prescribe for his wife, and some of the powders he gave her are declared by her sister to have contained powdered enamel. He also injected morphia until she said, "Do yon want to kill mc?" He answered, "No, it is to mate you well." Again she became so ill that her husband had her taken to St. Antoine hospital. She said to her sister, "This time he has given mc a strong dose. I am done for. Do not let mc oe buried without a post-mortem." Two hours later sho died. THE OTHEK WOMAS. The beginning of Mdme. de Forain's illness synchronised with the doctor's meeting with a young girl, who seems to have •conceived for him a passionate attachment. He was forty, and she only, eighteen, but, according to the letters written by the girl, she loved him with, a passion bordering on adoration. The police have found the following letters from her, addressed to M. de Foraim lam eighteen. I lore you. You told mc that yon loved mc, that I was beautiful, but I could not come to you. Are you the master? Gould you not turn out that vulgar woman? . Why will yon not tell her to go? Why do you not tell her that you love mc? Further on she saye:— This woman is in the way. Why did yon hide your slavery from mc? Why did you make mc hope? I repeat, this woman is in the way. I suffer inexpressible grief. I love you, O my beloved! In a letter written some days later she says:— I remember your promise to pay attention to what I eaid concerning—you know whom. You will be prudent, darling, will you not, from your love of mc? There are moments when I fla afraid. DEADLY CONSERVATORY. It is asserted that 11. de Forain, who is a great student of botany, devoted a conservatory in his lionse to the culture of poisonous plants* with, the juice of which he is alleged to have hastened his wife's death. M. de Forain has made a statement la which he says:— "The allegations about my giving my wife morphia are untrue. My troubles began in 1900 when my wife tried to rob mc. Four years later, while I was serving as a reservist at. Autun, my wife and sister-in-law, thinking I had disappeared, discharged the seivants, and my wife tried to claini my property under the Community of Property Acts."

An autopsy of the body has failed to reveal the cause of death, but certain of the organs are being subjected to a chemical examination. The result of the postmortem will not be known for a fortnight. Meanwhile, there is intense excitement at Montreuil-sur-Bois, where the doctor 13 well and favourably known. The young girl, the authoress of the "love letters to a doctor," owing to the disclosures witlx which her name is associated, has quitted the neighbourhood. /