STRANGE POISONING CASE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 73, 23 February 1918, Page 3

STRANGE POISONING CASE

- LITTLE GIRL’S SAD END. EATS RADISH SEEDS AND DIES. The inquest into the death of Dorothy Haseldeu, a child of nine years, who died at the Wellington Hospital ion January,3lst, was concluded before Mr:W. G. Riddell, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Dr J. S. MacLaurin, Dominion Analyst, who made the post-mortem exmination, said be had found radish seeds in the child’s stomach. No. reference could he found to thesc : seeds being poisonous, hut tests that had been carried out made it appear that such seeds were poisonous. Therefore it was highly probable that they were the cause of the child’s, death. Cecil Haseldeu < father of the child, said that ho had radish seeds at his house. They were kept in an outhouse where the children could have found thorn. After his child’s death ho found seeds lying on a bench in the outhouse, where the children evidently had upset them. 1 The coroner returned a verdict in accordance with the medical testimony, He remarked that without the analyst’s report it would have been im- ■ possible to tell the cause of death. Although radish seeds were generally considered harmless, now it had been shown that they were poisonous.