A TASMANIAN HOSPITAL SCANPAL

Marlborough Express, Volume XVI, Issue 235, 6 October 1881, Page 2

A TASMANIAN HOSPITAL SCANPAL

On the utli inst the " Hobart Mercury" informed the public that a uollin without a body ci it had, a few days previously, been ■lolivered over by tho authorities of the local Hospitil to tbe undertaker, ami by him convoyed to tho cemotery, "where, according to instructions conveyed to him, the cofliu was

mst by a clergyman, who was betrayed into the solemn travesty of reading the funeral service" over the empty coffin. Eoferriog to the subject on the following day, the same journal observed :—" We were told yesterday that the whole affairjwas a limple nintake on the part of the man m charge of the mortuary who seuc the coffin out instead of keepiug it there till the body was ready to be placed m it, which is auother way of saying till the body has been subjected to dissecting purposes. ... It seems, from whit we can

learn, that four bodies lay waiting interment and coffins were ordered accordingly. Into each of three of the coffins a body was placed, but on authority which has not yot been divulged the fourth body— that of a fuendless foreigner, who died of consumption — was appropriated by a portion of tho medical staff 'or their purposes, though contrary to law, and harrowing to public opinion." The uanio of the deceased whos» body was appropriated for dissection purpuses was Emil Lorentz Bruhn, aged thirty-two years. On the 9th inst. tho Visiting Committee reported as follows :—

In consequence of a letter addressed to the chairman of the Board by the ColoDial Secretary, dated August 31, 18S1, furnishing proof that an empty coffin had been sent from the hospital to the Cornelian Bay cemetery for interment, and requesting an immediate investigation into tha circumstances which led to the perpetration of this act, the Visiting Committee met and conducted the necessary investigation, when the following witnesses were exam ned, viz. — the secretary, the house surgeon, Mr Clark (the contracting undertaker), Henry Smith (h«srse-driver), and Roberc Wallis (mortuary attendant). Your Committee are of opinion that ths evidence discloses no participation on the part of any other officer m the institution m the transaction referred to, it appearing clearly from the evidence tnat the only two persons cognisant of the fact that ftn empty coliiu was sent away for interment were the mortuary attendaut and the undertaker. With regard to the latter, no motive can be assigned for his passively lending himself to the act ; and as for the former, he distinctly staves that he had no authority whatever for sending the coffin away empty. He knew that the body for which the coffin was intended had been detained for dissection, and his duty vi ould have been to have left the coffin until it was required ; but by some process of reasoning which the man himself cannot account for, but which he calls a blunder, he appears to have arrived at the conclusion that it was intended that the coffin should be buried — hence the shocking spectacle of the empty coffin being presented at the cemetery for interment. It is usual for the mortuary attendant, assisted by the undertaker, to place the bodies of the dead m their respective coffins. The present mortuary attendant has hitherto been entrusted with this duty, and has never before been known to be guilty of any irregularity. The conclusion arrived at by your Con.mittee is, that Wallis is alone guilty as regards the commission of the act, and that it was highly reprehensible on thn part of the undertaker to co-operate m what he must have known to be either a gross blunder or a wilful and shocking deceptiou.

The board of management passed resolutions severely censuring YVallis, and recommending the Government to give no further employment to the undertaker.