A SEQUEL TO THE LEWISHAM POISONING CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9178, 6 October 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

A SEQUEL TO THE LEWISHAM POISONING CASE.

£200 DAMAGES AGAINST THE CHEMIST. At the Middlesex Sheriff's Court, before Mr. Under-Sheriff Burchell and a jury, an action was heard a few days ago in which [Mrs. Catherine Ann Brewster sought to recover damages for the loss of her husband from Mr. Edward Lawrence Henry. The plaintiff is a widow, residing at No. 57, Court Hill Road, Lewishani, the defendant being a chemist, carrying on business at Loampit Vale, Hithergreen Lane, also in Lewisham. Plaintiff is the widow of a publican, who was the proprietor of the Sir Daniel Brewster publichouse, at Lewisham, and also carried on business as a builder. On the 17th of June last a medical student named Malcolm Cowan, and a friend of Mr. Brewster's, called at his house. Mr. Brewster complained of headache, and Cowan suggested that he should take five drops of strychnine in a seidlitz powder, remarking that he often took it himself. Deceased asked, as he could not get the strychnine himself, whether the medical student would get it for him. To this Cowan consented, and went to Henry's shop, where he asked for five drops of strychnine, to be mixed with half a seidlitz powder. He was served by a young man named Eugene Henry, aged twenty-two, the son of the defendant, but instead of supplying five drops of strychnine the assistant put in eight grains— about sixty or seventy dropswhich counsel said was sufficient to kill twenty persons. The bottle into which the strychnine was put was not labelled " poison," but simply " the draughtnor was there any statutory entry in the chemist's book of the sale of the poison. Mr. Brewster, who was a strong, hale, and hearty man of about seventy years of age, took the draught next morning, and in six minutes he was dead. The widow now brought an action, under Lord Campbell's Act, to recover damages. The jury awarded the plaintiff £200.