THE WRONG BOTTLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18325, 15 February 1923, Page 9

THE WRONG BOTTLE.

WOMAN'S FATAL DRINK. WARNING BY CORONER. i Instead of medicine, a deadly poison! Was taken by Mrs. Matilda Cruikshanks Humphries, aged 42 years, at a flat in Strickland Buildings, Sydney, on January 29. The two liquids were in similar bottles and kepi on the same shelf. Mrs. Humphries died at the Royal South Sydney Hospital on January 31. At the inquest Alfred Daniel Hutchinson, a chemical manufacturer, living at Strickland Buildings, said that when he reached home on January 29 Mrs. Humphries said: "Alf, I am so sick. I took some castor oil, and it has made me very ill." Beside the bed he found a glass containing about a tablespoonfnl of a spirit poison. Mrs. Humphries said she had drunk some of the contents of this glass, and had taken oil afterwards. This poison, said the witness, had come from a medicine bottle which was usually kept on a shelf in the bathroom among eight or ten other bottles. The poison and Mrs. Humphries' medicine, which was kept on the same shelf, were in bottles similar in size and having similar labels. Recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner said that this was a case emphas-'sing that peonle dealing with poisons should! place them where" innocent people could not ; mistake them for something else. "This deadly poison," he said, "was placed in/a medicine bottle, with, the hibel still on it, and put on a shelf with ; other bottlei. The unfortunate woman evidently meant to take medicine, and took the poison."