OBSCURE DISEASE

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 December 1923, Page 8

OBSCURE DISEASE

LEADING DOCTORS PUZZLED. Four medical men were baffled by the illness of Arthur Herbert Wilkin, aged 50, of Rockwood, Teignmouth, Devon, a retired superintendent of the Indian police, whose death in a London nursing home formed the subject of a Marylebono inquest. Dr. .Sydney Wollf said he was called in on September 13. Wilkin complained of pains in the back, arms, and chest, but at witness could find no critical symptoms of disease he thought the patient was merely suffering from indigestion. Wilkin grew worse,, and witness called in Dr. Hector Cameron, of Guy’s Hospital, but he also was unable to make a positive diagnosis. In the course of the next few° days Wilkin’s case became serious, and Mr Sampson Hambley, of the Middlesex Hospital, and Sir William Hale White, of Wimpole Street, were also consulted- Neither of these gentlemen was able, however, to say definitely what the patient was suffering from. “Then four doctors, two of them at least of great eminence in the profession, saw this man,” remarked the Deputy Coroner, Mr A. Douglas Cowburn, “and not one of them was able to make a diagnosis.” Dr. Thomas Rose, police divisional surgeon, spoke of having made a postmortem examination. He said he found that there was. degeneration of the heart muscle, an obscure disease, known as thrombosis of the coronary artery. He could quite understand that’it might have been impossible, to diagnose this condition during Wilkin’s 'life. 1 A verdict of “Death from natural causes” was recorded.