A CHILD KILLED BY A FLY

New Zealand Mail, 29 November 1900, Page 16

A CHILD KILLED BY A FLY

PAINFUL CASE

At Bartholomews’ Hospital, London, recently, Mr Arthur C. Langliam held an inquest relative to the death of Lydia Maria Chamberlain, aged nine years, the daughter of a riding instructor. Alfred Lewis Chamberlain, of Walthamstow, deposed that the deceased, his niece, was playing at the window, with his own little girl, when she suddeiiliy complained of having been bitten by a fly. Not much notice was taken at the time, but in the morning the spot on the nose where she had been bitten u ecu me so much inflamed and swollen that it was thought advisable to call in a doctor. Afterwards she became very delirious, and eventually lapseu into unconsciousness. By this time her nose and eye. had swollen to an abnormal size, and it was determined to have her removed to the hospital. Despite every effort, the child gradually sank, and diea. It was a case of such rarity that it was watched with intense interest by all the doctoks.

Mr Langliam : You are sure it was a fly that bit her?—What she said was

"Oh, I have just been bitten by a fly, and it is painful.” Dr Nixon., house surgeon, deposed that when he admitted the child she was unconscious. Having heard the history of the case he never left her until she died. The face was so swollen that- lie was unable to say at first where the bite was. He had since made a post-morten examination, and found inside the lower lid of the right eye an ulcer. This ulcer had set up inflammation, which had penetrated! into the skin and into the cellular tissues of the orbit. So great was the inflammation that the pupil oif the eye was forced out from between the lids, the pain being, no doubt, most terrible. On examining the lungs he found infection, showing that a blood stream had run fretn the head and carried the poisonous microbes over the body.

Mr Langliam : Have you ever heard of such a case before?—-Yes. We have records of one ,oa* two cases of the kind, but they are extremely rare. The bite of the insect caused the mi-cro-organisms, then?—l can see no other cause, from the history of the case. Continuing, witness said that death was due to general blood-poison-ing setup by the microbes. The jury returned a verdict of “Death from blood-poisoning set up by the bite of an insect.”