Infant's Death in Unusual Circumstances

Manawatu Times, Volume LIX, Issue 7471, 23 May 1934, Page 6

Infant's Death in Unusual Circumstances

TEAT PULLED OFF BOTTLE OF HOT MILK Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Night. “This is the iirst case of its kind to come under my notice,’’ said the Coroner, Mr. Hunt, S.M., at the inquest concerning the death of a nine-months-old child, George William Banbury, who died in the Auckland hospital on Sunday following burns received when lie pulled the teat off his bottle of Hot milk. Harriet May Raviicr, of Papatoetoe, foster-mother of the child, said she gave tlic child a bottle of milk. She had heated milk in a container and put it in the bottle, with a rubber teat attached. “I tested the milk with my finger before putting it in the bottle and it appeared to be about the right heat,” witness continued. “The baby took the bottle with his two hands, with the teat in his mouth, and commenced to suck. He always used to feed himself from the bottle a.nd we did not have to hold him up to feed him. 1 looked at him almost immediately after giving him the bottle and noticed that the teat was off. It was then in his mouth, having come off the bottle through Ins tugging at it. The contents of tho bottle were spilled over his head and shoulder.” t “1 think I can come to no other conclusion except that it was a case of misadventure,” said Mr. Hunt in returning a verdict that death was due to toxaemia and bronchitis following burns accidentally received.