DUNEDIN, December 19 At an inquest into the death of Alexander Halford, aged 49, a soldier, evidence disclosed that a wrong diagnosis was made on his admission to hospital after jamming his hand between the frame of a lorry in which he was riding and a gatepost. The Coioner Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M. returned a verdict that death was due to tetanus. It was possible, he said, that the death might not have occurred if Halford had received treatment other than he did. Dr. P. W. S. Riley, an experienced surgeon had unfortunately made a wrong diagnosis, but, apart from that, there seemed to be no question that death would probably not have occurred had anti-tetanus serum been administered when Halford first attended the outpatients department of the hospital. There was little else the Court could say on the matter, but it was as well, in the interests of the medical practitioners themselves, and of the public in general, that it should have been publicly ventilated.

PRESS, VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 23826, 21 DECEMBER 1942, PAGE 6