DOCTORS PUZZLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 655, 6 May 1929, Page 13

DOCTORS PUZZLED

WOMAN S FREAK DISEASE FIRST IN ENGLAND Two cases of deaths from rare diseases, one unique in medical science and the other only the fourth, of its kind recorded in this country, were investigated in English coroners’ courts in one day. The first, dealt with at a Kensington inquest, arose from the death in Mary, lebone Hospital of Minnie Durrant (59), of Kenilworth Road, Bow, who, it was stated, had been suffering from pemphigus vegetans. She had had an operation on her back, a leg had been amputated, and she died after an operation to her arm. Dr. Wm. Patterson told the coroner that it was an extremely rare disease. A number of medical men and students went to see the woman in hospital as “a unique case.” Dr. Bronte, the pathologist, said he had never seen such a case. He found no evidence as to the cause of the rare condition. The verdict was death by misadventure. A medical authority, interviewed later, said that the disease begins in certain parts of the body, and, despite all efforts to eradicate it by operation, continues, and saps the strength of i the sufferer. In the second case the victim was : a Deeds woman who died from fibrosis of the lungs. For 20 years j she had worked in an asbestos factory, and a local doctor said he was satisfied that that was sufficient to set up fibrosis and cause death. The coroner (Sir William Clarke) said that was the fourth case of its | kind, and an inquiry was being made ! ito its cause, the results of which j would shortly be available.