BOY OR GIRL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 16 January 1928, Page 8

BOY OR GIRL

HOSPITAL TANGLE

DISTRACTED PARENTS A problem tit for the judgment of a Solomon describes accurately as strange a puzzle as had over been given to a judge to unravel, and which eaino before the Court at Cleveland. It_concerned the parentage of a baby born in a liiatermly ward of a hospital and a mother who nine days after she was told she had given birth to a baby boy discovered she wag nursing instead a baby girl. She became convinced that there had been accidental substitution. Tho hospital .authorities... .howisve.iv said there had not, and scientific experts from near and far joined in attempting to unravel the problem- Eventually Judge Woygandt, before whom the case came, gave a legal decision that the ;baby girl was the real child of the doubting woman. Both die and her husband, however, are still very sceptical that they now have the eight baby. 'The mother to whom has come this extraordinary experience is a Mrs Smith, wife of Sam Smith, a resident of Cleveland, and already tho proud mother of four bonny children. Both she and her husband heartily desired a boy as the latest addition to their family, and when after the event she was told by the muse that her hopes had come true, and that she was the mother of a bonny lit lie son, she was overjoyed. So was Air Sam Smith when lie heard the news. “CLERICAL ERROR”

They were dumbfounded at the, to thorn, incredible news nine days later that the baby was a girl after all. The hospital authorities explained that the mistake was due to a “clerical error,” the girl having been wrongly booked by the nurse as a boy. The Smiths, however, refused to accept this explanation. There were two other Mrs Smiths in the same ward, and both had given birth to babies the samo day as Mrs Sam Smith. Moreover, both these Mrs Smiths hud baby boys. Mrs Sam Smith and her husband therefore bluntly declared their belief that The babies had all been mixed up, and that one' of the other Mrs Smiths had their child and that he was a boy, as they had first been told. Both the other Mrs Smiths, however, asserted with equal emphasis that the babies they were nursing were tlio correct ones, and backed up the hospital authorities in the assertion that there had been no error other than the initial one of wrongly hooking Airs Sam Smith’s offspring as a boy. The authorities, therefore, were faced with as pretty a tangle ,as could bo devised, with the 'mothers nursing the two boy babies stoutly refusing to give either of them lip; Airs Sam Smith as resolutely rofusing to accept the baby girl as hers, and further refusing through her (ears, to leave the hospital without, ag slio claimed, her real child. Her husbaud, Sam Smith,/promptly wont to law about it. Ho (brought .’a habeas corpus's, action demanding of tile hospital authorities that they produce the “body” of the child, “George Smith.” Arieli meanwhile learned doctors and scientists pored over the problem of how the actual parentage of the baby allotted to Mrs Sam Smith could be determined, be vond all cavil.

Some there were who assorted that a blood test would-give tho desired result; others that linger prints would reveal the truth; yet others that, comparisons of the facial and physical characteristics of mother and child, as well as expert examination by anthropologists of the bones of each, would support or demolish Mrs Sain Smith’s claim. And .shoals of letters poured in from all parts of the country offering suggestions as to how to. determine accurately, the bahy’s parentage. One woman, for instance, wrote declaring her ability, to solve the problem by a single gjance at the palms of mother and baby; while a scientist gave details of apparatus he had invented which lie said would determine the parentage instantly by measuring the vibrations of tho blood corpuscles in tho two.

There were many other suggesliofis, but not one of them was regarded as practicable. Nor were the blood test or • finger-print suggestions eventually. When the case.-came before Judge Weygandt for final settlement it was the evidence. cf those who had attended. Airs Sam Sniith and 'the evidence of doctors as to facial and other characteristics that decided the master. the chief witness

Judge Weygaiult had to decide against Mr and Airs Sum Smith. Tho chief witness was the nurse who had ushered the baby into the world.

She declared that she wtis positive that. Rio baby girl was Airs Sam Sniith s correct bahv. Slie frankly told how she had at first the impression that tlio baby was. a’boy, how the doctor who examined it after birth did not lake it out of its basket, how as a result of her impression as to its. sex it was labelled “Nq. 70, male,” these labels being affixed to its back, tied to its wrist's, and also to the basket, and how the baby was then placed on a shelf together with four N othcr babies born the same dav.

film said that The hospital records were badly muddled, and that the Smith Baby Tangle arose purely as the result of a clerical error. This evidence was followed by that of a medical expert, who declared that the baby possessed physical characteristics of a dominant character possessed also by other members of-the Sam .Smith family. And other nurses confirmed the evidence already given that a clerical error had beeii made.

Judge Wevgandt therefore dismissed the action brought bv the Sinn' Smiths, thereby deciding that the 'mother had her right baby. She grew hysterical as she heard tlie decision, and barely heard the voice of the judgip as he told her that the only thing she could do was to accept the baby girl as really her own. ‘Airs Saiu Sniith and her husband were, however, both in tears and heartbroken. “Pl| accept the baby gill as my child,” the sobbing mother told the sympathetic friends who surged round her, “but the doubt will never bo banished from my mind. I’ll never bo thoroughly satisfied slid is my child.” Her husband voiced tho same thing. ‘ That, doubt,” ho said, “will always be in my mind, too. But,” he concluded, as ho placed an arm round his tearful wife, “we’l! take her and bring her up like our other four children.” And so the Smith Baby Tangle has been solved.