EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15312, 13 August 1923, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.

SURGICAL OPERATION NECESSARY SKULL PRESSING ON BRAIN. A somewhat extraordinary case came'before Mr H. A. Young, S.M., at Hamilton to-day, which goes to prove the value of surgery in relieving abnormal mental 'condition. On June 18 a middle-aged man, named Arthur Dowsing, went into a chemist shop in Hamilton and purchased an ounce of poison. At the door of the shop he drank the contents <of the bottle and collapsed on the footpath. The police rushed up and hurried the man to the Waikato Hospital. Here the medical authorities discovered that a portion of the man's skull was pressing on his brain. They removed one of"his ribs and grafted portion of it on to his skull, with the result that the man's depression left him, and he is now quite normal. The doctors stated that had this operation not been performed, defendant would always have had a tendency do take his life, and to commit other abnormal acts.

Dowsing pleadins guilty to attempting suicide, and the Magistrate convicted him and ordered hm to pay £26 biweekly instalments of £l' to the Hospital Board for medical expenses.