MORE DOCTORS GIVE EVIDENCE IN CLEMENTS CASE

Evening Star, Issue 26137, 26 June 1947, Page 7

MORE DOCTORS GIVE EVIDENCE IN CLEMENTS CASE

(Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, June 25. Mrs Amy Winifred Stevens, a middle-aged woman, gave evidence at the resumed inquest, at Southport on her friends, Dr Robert George Clements and his fourth wife, Amy Victoria Clements, and Dr James Montague Houston, who performed the post mortem examination on Mrs Clements. Dr Clements died on May 30, the day fixed for his wife’s funeral, which was stopped at the last minute by a coroner’s order. Mrs Stevens said Dr < Clements knocked at her door at midnight on May 26 and called out: “ Amv, come quickly, Vee is dying.” She and Clements drove in a car belonging to Dr Brown to Clements’s flat. Mrs Clements’s lips were swollen and blue and her fingers were black to tho second knuckle. Her jaw had dropped and her face was puffy. Mrs Clements was taken to a nursing home, where Dr , Holmes saw her. Dr Holmes told witness that he thought the illness either hysteria dne to Mrs Clements’s time of life or a tumour on the brain. Mrs Stevens said Clements called on her on the evening of May 27 and kissed her when he left, as he ahvavs did. He also came the next night aud was very quiet. He did not say anything about an inquest. She never heard the word morphine mentioned. The Coroner; “ What impression did you get when Dr Clements kissed you? ” Mrs Stevens: “ He had always thought of himself as my guardian.” The Coroner: “ Rather late in life to have a guardian, isn’t it? ” Mrs Stevens: "He was very good to my husband and promised him that he would do what he could for me and my son, as we were among strangers.” The Coroner: " You don’t want to amplify that? ” Mrs Stevens: “ No.”

Answering counsel for Clements’s son, Mrs Stevens said Dr Clements always treated his wife with the greatest consideration, and his wife told witness that she did not know what she would do without him. MATRON’S EVIDENCE. The nursing home matron, Mrs Blodwin Baxendale, said Mrs Clements was unconscious when admitted to the home. Dr Brown mentioned morphine poisoning, and she agreed, because the patient’s eyes had pinpoint pupils. Joseph Court Robinson, laboratory technician, who attended the post mortem on Mrs Clements with Dr Holmes and Dr Houston, said he had been instructed that the examination would only be of the brain, but when Dr Houston found nothing wrong with „fche brain Dr Holmes saia they should examine the rest of the body. The organs were removed, and after Dr Houston had seen a blood slide in the laboratory he confirmed the affliction as myeloid leukaemia. Dr Houston told the laboratory chief that the organs could be destroyed, and witness himself placed them in the incinerator. Dr Houston’s conclusions were definite, and he seemed to have no hesitation ahout the result. He did not tell witness that he suspected anything else. DR HOUSTON’S PART.

The Coroner read a statement by Dr Edwin Cronin Lowe, honorary consulting pathologist at Southport Infirmary, in which he said he thought Dr Houston’s diagnosis was honest and genuine, hut based on insufficient evidence, and in an explicable way Dr Houston’s usual careful mental approach to a difficult problem had been biased. Dr Houston, feeling that an easily-ex-plained mistake was a fault on his part, took a regrettable step which closed a brilliant professional career. Dr Lowe said he did not consider that Dr Houston was at fault in not returning the organs to the body after the post mortem examination. If Dr Brown, who gave evidence yesterday, suspected morphine poisoning, it was his duty to communicate his suspicion. Dr Lowe said he was certain that if Dr Houston had had this information he would not have completed the examination without a clinical analysis of the organs. Dr Lowe said that contracted pupils were evidence of morphine poisoning. If ever he saw them he would think of poisoning. POISON IN BODY. Dr W. H. Grace, Home Office pathologist, said he carried out a /post mortem on the coroner’s instructions, and found certain evidence, which, taken in conjunction with the findings of'-Dr J. B. Firth, Director of the Home Office forensic laboratory, definitely showed that Mrs Clements died from morphine poisoning. Dr Firth said he found a fairly large amount of morphine in one kidney and in the spinal cord. He also examined a glass syringe, and found a marked amount of morphine in it. Dr Firth said he found the bottle in Dr Clements’s bedroom labelled “ one night and morning, Mrs Clements.” The prescription was for phenol barbitole. but the bottle contained a quarter of a grain morphine tablets. Dr Firth said the sodium cyanide found in Dr Houston’s body was more than 300 times the average lethal dose. “ I have never met such a high quantity of poison in the stomach of any individual,” he said. Dr Grace said the cause of Dr Clements’s death was morphine poisoning. There was no. evidence of disease in any organ sufficient to cause death The Coroner read a note written to him by Dr Houston : “ I for some time have been aware that I have been making too many errors of judgment, and have not profited by the experience. One just follows another. Yours faithfully, James SI Houston.” CLEMENTS’S DIARY. The Coroner read extracts from Dr Clements’s diarv. Most of them referred to his wife’s health. One. dated Mav 26. said: “Vee has commenced to lose her voice and is losing power in her limbs. Got her home with difficulty and a fearful headache. Got her to bed and prepared tea. Vee felt better. Aftor washing up. found her unconscious. Sent for Dr Brown and Dr Holmes. Transferred her to Astlev Bank Nnrsine Home. She never recovered consciousness, and died at 9.15 a.m. An adorable wife. She was eood and devoted, but never fair to herself." TliP hearing was adjourned.