COINCIDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 8

COINCIDENCE

A TRAGIC TRAIN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 27th February.

Behind obituary notices published in Sydney the 4 other day recording the death of mother and daughter there was a remarkable story of tragic coincidences which had ended with the death of five persons. ,

Miss Gertrude Paterson was for many years a nurse at the great establishment of Sir Herbert Maitland, who was one of Sydney's most famous surgeons.l Then she became his nursesecretary, and an integral part in his medical organisation. Suddenly death struck with one blow at the man who had so often defied it. The firßt of his colleagues to reach Sir Herbert Maitland was Dr. Herbert Marks, and after Sir Herbert Maitland died he invited Nurse Paterson to join him. Nurse Paterson agreed, but while she was in his employment she developed-a nasal disorder, and was treated for, this by .her employer. Dr. Cuthbert Verge, a noted nasal specialist, was also called in to attend to the nurse, and when Dr. Marks went abroad for a term Dr. Verge continued the treatment. One day, when withdrawing an instrument from the steriliser. Dr. Verge burned his arm badly. Septicaemia intervened, and before long Dr. Verge was dead. The,fatal coincidence affected Nurse Paterson, who regretted the loss of two brilliant men who had been her colleagues. Dr. Marks, having returned, resumed charge of her case, which he treated with some succoss. Then, as suddenly as Sir Herbert Maitland, ho too fell under tho tragic stroke and died. The third fatality might well have chilled the superstitious with suspicion of a gloomy fate haunting tho afflicted nurse. But medicine has no room for mysticism, and other doctors readily took up the case. A few days ago Miss Paterson attended a hospital for treatment, and as she rode home in a taxi-cab the shadow again fell across her. life. This time it was she herself who felt the grip of the relentless hand. In a seizuzre the nurse was hurried to her mother's home. She died almost before she reached her mother. But the end was not yet. Whe^ the tragic news was broken to Mrs. Paterson it was too much for her, and at tho shock of the news her heart failed, and two lay'dead in the house.

Bylaws governing the control of the Arthur Pass National Park are published, in this week's "Gazette. 1?