TO STAND TRIAL

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 18, 16 October 1930, Page 13

TO STAND TRIAL

Indian Herbalist DEATH OF A BOY Manslaughter Charge By Telegraph.—Press Association. New Plymouth, October 15. On a charge of manslaughter, Abraham Wally Mahomed Salaman was to-day committed to the Supreme Court for trial. The major charge against him was that between July 30 and August -, 1930, at New Plymouth, , in attending to and prescribing for a child, Lydll Gordon Christie, he failed to use competent skill, and by improper medical treatment he unlawfully accelerated the death of the boy, thereby committing manslaughter. Salaman was admitted to bail in the sum of £5OO and two sureties of £250. When the Court resumed this morning a witness gave evidence that his daughter, aged 14 years, suffered from diabetes, and had been treated with insulin since nine years of age. He took her to Salaman, who said she had a tendency to dropsy, and advised a change of diet and discontinuance of the insulin treatment. Salaman provided, medicine. The child was taken to Salaman on a Tuesday, and the insulin was discontinued. On Wednesday morning the child fell into a state of coma. On the Friday the child was taken to hospital, and in the evening was given insulin. In an hour she recovered. It was a case of touch and go. Witness’s wife paid for the medicine. Medical evidence was given by Dr. J. S. Church, who was present at the postmortem examination on the body of Roy Christie, conducted by Dr. Taylor. The condition of the boy on the morning of the day he died, as described by the boy’s sister, suggested to witness the on-coming of coma. If witness had been called to the boy on that morning and found him in that condition he would have considered it a case of grave emergency and one for Immense doses of insulin. Witness, after explaining the discovery ancj, use of insulin, stated that the highest authorities were now of the opinion that no child should die of diabetic coma.

Dr. C. A. Taylor, who made the postmortem examination, said he could not help feeling that proper doses of insulin would have prevented the childs death. The organs showed no abnormal features except a lack of human insulin. Where once cases of diabetes in children were considered hopeless, he now knew of a case which had lived since 1922, and lived a useful life. The percentage of such deaths in America had fallen to one per cent. Detective Kearny gave evidence of the arrest of Salaman. When the police visited the house Salaman came to the door wearing a stethoscope. Etc asked to see the warrant, and upon being warned regarding what he had to say, he said: “They brought the child here a week before it died, but I had nothing to do with it.