MYSTERY DRUG VICTIM.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 102, 2 May 1929, Page 17

MYSTERY DRUG VICTIM.

UNIVERSITY TRAGEDY. Some mysterious unknown drug caused the death of a brilliant Oxford undergraduate who was devoting himself to the study of chemisty as his life work. Mr. William Frederick Guy, whose home was at Bushey, Herts, was found dead in bed in his rooms in Keble College. Dr. George David Parkes, at tutor of Keble College, said that Mr. Guy was in his third year and was reading in the chemistry school. One of his tasks was to analyse unknown drugs, and it was possible for him to take a small quantity of the drugs to his rooms. When Mr. Guy first went to the university he suffered from depression, but had improved this term. Dr. William Tregonell Collier, of Woodstock Road, Oxford, said death was due to asphyxia caused by some drug. The unusual state of rigidity of the body suggested that strychnine might have been taken through the month, and -there was staining of the lining of the stomach, which was not due to a caustic. A year ago he saw Guy at the request of the warden of the college, as he had been behaving rather strangely. On his advice Guy saw Dr. Good, of the neurological department of the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He was discharged from Dr. Good's care some months ago. The symptoms might have been caused by an overdose of some narcotic or sleeping draught. Mr. Reginald Jack , Lye, an undergraduate, said that Guy was at the laboratory at Queen's College the night before his death, analysing a substance which he afterwards identified as strychnine. Mr. George Frederick Guy said that in August, 1926, his son Suffered from, sunstroke and depression 1 had been noticed since that' time. Last vacation he was cheerful, but this- term he wrote home say that he had decided not to stay up at Keble, but to try to get a colonial appointment. He had suffered from sleeplessness. Dr. Parkes was shown a white powder which was found in a drawer in Guy's room, and said that he could not identify it without analysis. The jury recorded a verdict of death from asphyxia caused by some drug whose identity there was no evidence to show.