A FATAL HEMORRHAGE.
The Coroner proceeded to hold an inquiry concerning the death of James Capstick, a young man who had a hemorrhage at the Alliance Box Factory on Saturday morning, and who died while being removed to the Hospital.
Teresa Henderson, aunt of the deceased, identified the body. The boy was 21 years of age, and single. He had been in Cromwell Hospital for some time. His parents were both dead.
Elizabeth Parsons Steven, formerly a probationer nurse in Cromwell Hospital, said the deceased was an inmate of Cromwell Hospital for (she believed) two years up to August last, suffering from tuberculosis.
Richard Wm. Brickell, manager of the Alliance Box Factory, said the deceased had been in the employ of the company for three weeks. At 11.50 a.m. on Saturday, as witness was talking to him, deceased’s nose started to bleed, and a moment later blood gushed from his mouth. Witness took him out into the yard and tried to get a doctor, without success. Witness then rang up the Hospital, and deceased was removed there in a taxicab. The bleeding had continued for 20 minutes, and he was practically dead when put in the taxi. There had been a little bleeding from the nose a few days earlier. This man had been passed fit by the medical authorities, and had been on his way to Trentham when stopped by a wire from the Cromwell doctor.
Robert Miln Wishart, a medical student who has passed his final examination but is not yet registered, said he saw deceased when admitted to the Hospital. He was dead when brought in. Witness saw him earlier at the Alliance Box Factory, where he went in response to a telephone call to the Hospital. He found the patient very white, cold, and flaccid. Witness remained till he was put in the taxi, and accompanied him to the Hospital. The cause of death was hemorrhage of the lungs, which was explained by the previous tubercular history.
The Coroner found that death was due to hemorrhage of the lungs. -Evening Star, 24/9/1917.
Another case of the occasionally remarkable opinions of military medical boards as to the physical fitness of Reservists was mentioned in the House of Representatives yesterday by Mr Wilford. The member for the Hutt (wires our Parliamentary Reporter) asked the Minister of Defence if he had heard of the case of James Capstick, upon whose body an inquest had been held at Dunedin. He read the Dunedin Star's statement of the case. This was in effect that the deceased had been a sufferer from acute tuberculosis, had been subjected to attacks of hemorrhage, had been for two years an inmate of the Cromwell Hospital, whence he had been discharged last month, after which he was passed as fit for military service. How this came about was mysterious. (An hon. member: It always is.) The Cromwell Hospital authorities had protested, and got him taken off the train at Ranfurly. Later he went on to Dunedin, and got accommodation in the city. In a few days he had another attack of hemorrhage and died. Sir James Allen said he knew nothing of the case. He suggested that such cases should be submitted to the Minister before they were made public by members. -Evening Star, 28/9/1917.
THE CASE OF JAMES CAPSTICK
TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In a sub-leader in your issue of 25th inst. you express curiosity as to certain facts in connection with the late James Capstick. It seems to me that it would have been more in keeping with the standard of your paper if you had satisfied that curiosity before publishing your remarks on the case. The following are the facts in so far as they concern the relations between Capstick and the Cromwell Hospital: —
He was a patient, except for two short periods, of this hospital for about two years. In course of time he was called up by the ballot for military service. He proceeded to Alexandra to be examined, obtaining leave from me to do so. On his return the same day he informed me, to my great surprise, that he had been passed as fit for active service, and asked me not to take any steps to prevent his going. I told him that it was a matter beyond my authority, but that I would have to report to the Hospital Committee, and that, seeing his dangerous condition, he could not stay in the town. I further told him that as he was still an undischarged patient of the Cromwell Hospital, he was to stay there until I reported to the committee. The committee, through its chairman, authorised me to inform the North Otago Military Headquarters at Oamaru of the facts of the case. This I did, but I received no reply until the morning Capstick left for Trentham — too late to stop him. The military authorities, however, detrained him at Ranfurly, and he returned to Cromwell. He did not, as you suggest, go on to Dunedin.
I saw him the morning after his return, and advised him to return to the Cromwell Hospital, but this he absolutely refused to do. As he was now an attested soldier he was under the control of the military authorities (who knew of his condition), and I had no jurisdiction in the matter. He informed me that as a Medical Board had expressed an opinion diametrically opposed to mine he was inclined to accept the board's estimate of his health. He next went to light work on a station up country and I asked him to return to the Cromwell Hospital, and see me if his condition did not improve.
The next communication I had from him, however, was a telephone message from Dunedin left at my house during my absence telling me that the military authorities were going to arrest him, and asking me to wire him a certificate. This I did, concluding that he had been called up for further medical examination, and had possibly not notified any change of address. I heard nothing more about him until I was informed of his sudden death from haemorrhage.
So the facts of his case briefly are that he was never discharged from this hospital, but on being accepted for active service and attested he automatically passed under the control of the military authorities, who issued no instructions to me regarding him except that he would be reexamined.
— I am, etc., Robert A. Shore Medical Superintendent Cromwell Hospital. September 26.
[Ed - Shore's letter clears up the position in so far as the relations between the unfortunate man and the Cromwell Hospital are concerned. It amply confirms, also, our own version of the case. It is true that doubt is cast upon our statement that Capstick had been discharged from Cromwell Hospital. As, however, Dr Shore admits that he had no authority to require Capstick to return to the hospital and as Capstick disregarded Dr Shore's advice that he should do so, the statement that he was discharged does not really need much qualification. Even although Capstick was not discharged from the hospital with the consent of the medical superintendent, it cannot be surprising that we accepted as correct the intimation that he had actually been discharged, because no one would ever have expected that any medical board would pass as fit for active service a person who was an in-patient of a hospital, suffering from consumption so advanced that he was in a dangerous condition. The information which Dr Shore supplies concerning the case leaves two important matters yet to be settled. One is as to the quality of the medical examination which passed into the ranks of the Expeditionary Force a man who was apparently in the last stages at consumption. The other is as to the measure of protection that is afforded to the public when a man, whose condition was so dangerous that he could not, according to Dr Shore, stay in the town of Cromwell, was at liberty to secure, accommodation in an hotel in Dunedin, and to obtain employment, amongst a number of other persons, in a factory in Dunedin, after he had travelled presumably in the company of a number of other people in a railway carriage, from Central Otago to Dunedin. From the point of view of the public, this letter is a most serious matter. —Ed. O.D.T.] -Otago Daily Times, 28/9/1917.
The value of some military medical examinations was made clear the other day at Dunedin, when an inquest revealed the fact that James Capstick, WHO HAD BEEN FOR TWO YEARS AN INMATE OF THE CROMWELL HOSPITAL SUFFERING INCURABLY WITH TUBERCULOSIS, after having been discharged from the Hospital as an incurable, WAS ACTUALLY PASSED AS PHYSICALLY FIT BY THE MILITARY MEDICAL OFFICERS, and had been on his way to camp at Trentham when he was stopped as the result of a telegram from the hospital doctor! Having been put off the train at Ranfurly, be returned to Dunedin, secured accommodation at a local hotel, and later got employment in a local factory, where, after working for three weeks he was seized with a hemorrhage of the lungs, which resulted in death before he could be got to the local hospital. Surely the doctor or doctors who passed such a man as fit should be required to answer a criminal charge. -Maoriland Worker, 3/10/1917.
CONSCRIPTING CONSUMPTIVES
And Other Physical Wrecks
What the "British Abolitionist" Says
A Recent Dunedin Revelation
The Curious Case of James Capstick
Dr. Shore's Sensational Statement
(From "Truth's" Dunedin Rep.) The "British Abolitionist," an old established and very reputable antivivisection magazine, so late as August 1 last, had the following sensational paragraphs among its caustic notes and comments: "The 'Daily Express' says, the highest medical officer in the British army is Sir Alfred Keogh. He has 'doctor' written all over him. He is a thoughtful-looking man who does not say all he knows. He has a silvery moustache, blue eyes, and a clinical face. He does not believe in tolerating
BACILLI, HUNS, OR QUACKS." So far as the Huns are concerned, they are outside his province; up till now the bacilli have set him at defiance, and are likely to continue to do so, for he advocates their cultivation by the million; as for quacks, we should like to know what he would call 'a quack'; from our point of view, the quack, under his aegis, is having a high old time of it. But there is something the British public is not likely to tolerate from Sir Alfred Keogh, namely, the secret letters and telegrams sent to his underlings all over the country, by which men with heart disease, consumption, epilepsy, and every kind of physical disability, including mental derangement, have been forced into the British army."
So much for "The Abolitionist's" quotation and quiet comment. Both are instructive in view of what is taking place in these islands. Take the following inquest on James Capstick, conscript and consumptive invalid, and Dr. Robert A. Shore's disclosures.
A young man, named James Capstick, who had a hemorrhage at the Alliance Box Factory, died subsequently in a taxi-cab on his way to the Dunedin Hospital The fact that the unfortunate man had been passed fit as a conscript and sent on his way to Trentham while in the last stages of consumption aroused considerable interest at the inquest.
Teresa Henderson, aunt of the deceased, identified the body. The boy had been 21 years of age and single. He had been a patient of Cromwell Hospital for a long time. Both his parents were dead.
Elizabeth Parsons Steven, formerly a probationer nurse in Cromwell Hospital, said the deceased was an inmate of Cromwell Hospital for two years. He had been suffering from tuberculosis.
Richard William Brickwell said deceased had been in the employ of the Alliance Company (Dunedin) for three weeks. At 11.30 a.m. on Saturday, as witness was talking to him, deceased's nose started to bleed, and a moment later blood gushed from his mouth. Witness took him out to the yard, and tried to get a doctor, but without success. Witness then rang up the hospital, and deceased was removed in a taxi-cab. The bleeding had continued for twenty minutes and
HE WAS PRACTICALLY DEAD when put into the taxi. The man had been passed fit by the Military Medical Board, and had been on his way to Trentham when stopped by the Cromwell doctor. The military authorities, even after this, were going to arrest him, and he had to receive a wired Certificate from Dr. Shore of Cromwell.
Robert M. Wishart, medical student, said deceased was dead when brought into the hospital. The cause of death was hemorrhage of the lungs, which was explained by the previous tubercular history.
The Coroner's verdict was death from hemorrage.
Now comes Dr. Robert A. Shore's very proper disclosures in relation to deceased. Dr. Shore, who saw to the poor youth's interests m every way possible, is the Medical Superintendent of the Cromwell Hospital. Were it not for this humane gentleman, Capstick would certainly have died at Trentham, and the facts of the case might have been successfully smothered up there. He died in any case (after having been threatened with arrest by the military authorities), but he did not die the mysterious death of a Trentham conscript. The following are Dr. Shore's facts in so far as they concern the relations between Capstick and the Cromwell Hospital:
"He was a patient for two years of this hospital. In the course of time he was called up by ballot for military service. He proceeded to Alexandra to be examined, obtaining leave from me to do so. On his return the same day he informed me, to my great surprise, that he had been passed as fit for active service, and asked me not to take any steps to prevent his going. I told him that it was a matter beyond my authority, but that I would have to report to the hospital committee, and that, seeing his dangerous condition, he could not stay in the town. I further told him that as he was still an undischarged patient of the Cromwell Hospital, he was to stay there until I reported to the committee. The committee, through its chairman, authorised me to inform the North Otago Military headquarters at Oamaru of the facts of the case. This I did, but I received no reply until the morning Capstick left for Trentham. I saw him the morning after his return, and advised him to return to the Cromwell Hospital, but this he absolutely refused to do. As he
WAS NOW AN ATTESTED SOLDIER he was under the control of the military authorities, who knew of his condition, and I had no jurisdiction m the matter. He informed me that as a Medical Board had expressed an opinion diametrically opposed to mine, he was inclined to accept the Board's estimate of his health. The next communication I had from him, however, was a telephone message from Dunedin telling me that the military authorities were going to arrest him, and asking me to wire him a certificate. This I did. I heard nothing more about him until I was informed of his sudden death from hemorrhage.
"ROBERT A. SHORE, Medical Superintendent, Cromwell Hospital.''
"Truth" purposely refrains from adding its own conclusions. The facts as adduced at the inquest, and the statement made by Dr. Shore, reveal a condition of affairs which are deplorable. Still, there is another side, and "Truth" has not the least doubt that an official explanation will be tendered, and pending the making of such explanation, "Truth" will not say what it certainly is warranted in saying on the facts. In the meantime, "Truth" trusts that the matter will be ventilated in Parliament. -NZ Truth, 6/10/1917.
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