TRIAL OF NURSE KERR

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 71, 6 March 1933, Page 9

TRIAL OF NURSE KERR

ILLNESS OF FOSTER-CHILD FURTHER MEDICAL EVIDENCE. Auckland, March 4. When the hearing of evidence in the Nurse Kerr trial was continued today. Dr. Charles Henry Wheeler, of Devonport, said that he was called by Mi's Kerr to see her husband the day before he died. Kerr was in bed and seemed a bit “fuzzy-wuzzy”. He seemed to understand what witness said, and he could rouse him. Mr Meredith (for the Crown): When did you see him again? Witness: The next day. Was he alive?—Just alive. He was unconscious. I did not examine him. He was lying like a log. On your first visit, what did you diagnose?—Congestion'of the brain. Did you see him again before his death?—No. I saw him immediately after he died. Mrs Kerr was crying and said he was dead I gave a certificate to the undertaker that death was due to cerebral hemorrhage. Some time later, witness said, he was called in to see Betty Kerr, and sent her to hospital. She was suffering from acute appendicular colic. He did not remember when he saw the child again. He suggested that Mrs Kerr should have another opinion when the child went wrong again. He forgot whether he saw her again himself. In the afternoon further medical evi. dence was heard dealing with the poison concerned in the case, its uses and its effects. Dr. E. B. Gunson said that in the light of the facts of the first coma of the child Betty, it was due to the drug taken in greater than a therapeutic dose. Witness said thri-t the symptoms described in Kerr’s ease were characteristic of the drug. His considered opinion on the evidence was that Kerr’s death was due to a lethal dose. In Mrs Day’s case he was of the opinion that she had had a lethal close. The hearing was adjourned until Monday.