The report of the ordinary and resident medical officers and the annual report of the Inspector and Director, of the Public Hospital, for 1864, with the reply of the ordinary medical officers thereto : the letter of Alexander Fiddes ... and his correspondence with the governor, and the executive committee on the subject of his resignation and retirement from the Hospital : the letter of L.Q. Bowerbank ... in reply to Dr. Fiddes, and Dr. Fiddes' reply to same : also, the evidence adduced at the coroner's inquest, held on Richard Bailey, lately an inmate of the Public Hospital.

  • Kingston Public Hospital (Jamaica)
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The report of the ordinary and resident medical officers and the annual report of the Inspector and Director, of the Public Hospital, for 1864, with the reply of the ordinary medical officers thereto : the letter of Alexander Fiddes ... and his correspondence with the governor, and the executive committee on the subject of his resignation and retirement from the Hospital : the letter of L.Q. Bowerbank ... in reply to Dr. Fiddes, and Dr. Fiddes' reply to same : also, the evidence adduced at the coroner's inquest, held on Richard Bailey, lately an inmate of the Public Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the. Colonial Standard,” as also an editorial on a portion of vcster days evidence (Or Lake’s) in the “Morning Journal” He(Mr”u 5t was not hur either to comment on, or to publish, the evidence! until the conclusion of the inquiry. The Coroner stated that lie had no jurisdiction to do so Hr- <nted a case of a Coroner’s Inquest in England in which the same mode ot procedure was pursued- Thom-.s H Somerville, Esquire- Resident Medical Officer of the i ubile Hospital, sworn—On the 27th of last month, in the eveniim at about eight or nine o’clock, I accompanied Ur. Field to Ward No! ), to see a patient who, he said, had broken a catheter into his bladder* On arriving at the ward I found the patient in bed, with about three or tour i nches of a catheter dangling from the tapes, by which it had been fastened into the urethra. It appeared to us that the remaining portion ot the catheter was in the urethra, but this was denied by the patient. J J e (the patient) stated that Dr. A nderson liad never intro- duced any other instrument than the small piece of catheter we saw Hanging by the tapes. This appeared absurd and incredible. We lerefore proceeded to feel for the catheter in the perinaeum, but its presence there was not satisfactorily made out. Doctor Field then proposed to pass a sound into the urethra. I assented to that proJ ceeding, and alio. 8 sound was passed slowly through, and cautious!v into the urethra, it met with no obstruction, and passed readily into the bladder, but when rotated it was felt to strike against a hard- su Jstance; I took hold of the sound myself and rotated it, and felt it strike against a hard substance. We then came to the conclusion, that the remaining part of the catheter was in the bladder. The deceased V as told so, and also that an operation would be necessary for its removal: 'lls ■*ie °hjected to, and denied in excited and angry terms that any part of the instrument remained in his bladder; 'he was then enjoined to remain quiet in bed, and the night nurse and the patients- nearest to him were asked to look after him, and to keep him quiet 111 j ^ saw next day, along with Drs. Bowerbank, Anderson, and r leld. The deceased was then requested by each of us to sub- mit to an operation for the removal of the broken catheter, but he obstinately refused, and continued to affirm that there was no portion of the instrument there. I was* present at the operation, and as far as I observed, it was performed rapidly and skilfully. I was present at the post mortem examination, and from the appearances exhibited by the body, I came to the conclusion that the deceased had died from blood poisoning, that is to say, from the presence of pus and urea in the blood. I consider that the cause of the pus and urea being in the blood, was from absorption from the wound in the peri- nseum, and that the presence ot uvea in the blood resulted from kid- ney disease. The appearances of gangrene in the wound were so slight, that I cannot say whether it actually existed or not. The scrotum was swollen, excoriated, and suppurating. There was no appearance of stricture in the urethra, to the contrary, the urethra appeared to have been dilated. I don’t think there was any neces- sity for passing a catheter for a stricture; but I do not know what other reason there might have been for so doing. A catheter may be passed for paralysis of the bladder, but then it is not usually tied in.