FATAL DOSE OF CHLOROFORM

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27920, 17 March 1956, Page 2

FATAL DOSE OF CHLOROFORM

SELF ADMINISTERED ANAESTHETIC FINDING ON YOUNG MAN’S DEATH (New Zealand Press Association) NEW PLYMOUTH, March 16. “This is a case of a person administering a dangerous drug to himself, for the soothing or pleasurable sensations which it gave, and ending by giving himself an overdose,” said the district Coroner (Mr N. F. Little) at an inquest in New Plymouth. Eric Harold Gray, aged 24. a postman. died at his home, 102 Young street, early on the morning of February 9. and the Coroner returned a verdict that the cause of death was poisoning by , inhaling chloroform. “I feel bound to point out the great danger of experimenting with such drugs without medical advice,” the Cororier said. "Drugs of very different kinds can be obtained readily, and it is not always realised that many are poisons, in different and often insidious ways. Their use can easily lead to disaster, as in this case.” Francis Walter Christiansen, supervisor of postmen, said that until recently Gray had been a good worker. He appeared to be worried, and lately was slipping at his work. Audrey Loretta Gray, widow of the dead man, said that their married life had been very happy. About midnight on February 8, the baby woke, and her husband attended to it. About 1.30 a.m. she was called again to the baby, and when she went back to bed she found her husband with a bathing cap over his face. She spoke to him. but he did not reply. After trying artificial respiration she sent for Dr. Hayton. When Dr. Hayton arrived he told her that her husband was dead. The witness said she had bought chloroform to enable her husband to kill some cats. Dr. Hayton asked her for it, and she found it in the bed under her husband’s body. Her husband had on occasions told her about inhaling chloroform, but he had never talked of taking his own life. She believed he died through misadventure in inhaling too much chloroform. Dr. A. C. Hayton gave evidence of the finding of the chloroform, and said that Mrs Gray said that she and her husband had discussed a part of Dr. Doris Gordon’s book saying that chloroform was safe.

CAKE IN USE OF CHLOROFORM WARNING BY DR. DORIS GORDON (New Zealand Press Association) NEW PLYMOUTH, March 16. “Chloroform is dangerous in inexperienced hands,” said Dr. Doris Gordon, of Stratford, today. Evidence was given at an inquest in New Plymouth yesterday that the dead man and his wife has discussed a book by Dr. Gordon, saying that chlorform was safe. Three passages in Dr. Gordon’s book, “Backblocks Baby Doctor,” refer to the administration of chloroform. and in each instance it is pointed out that chloroform is safe when used properly. Dr. Gordon today said that her attitude to the use of anaesthetics was best illustrated by the following passage from her book, in which she recalled addressing an Empire conference of obstetricians and gynaecologists in Edinburgh:— “I told them that it had been a Hebridean Scot who had taught me that there was nothing wrong with chloroform if the person in charge of it was careful. I suggested that they would have as many anaesthetic deaths with all their new drug combinations as we had ever had with chloroform unless they gave up searching for something so foolproof that the anaesthetist imagined he could go into a day-dream. “I was trying, of course, to emphasise the importance of the care with which any anaesthetic should be given.”