TETANUS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10301, 10 January 1927, Page 3

TETANUS

YOUNG MOTHER’S DEATH

PICKED A TOOTH. DANGER OF SAFETY PINS. SYDNEY, Jan. 26. The danger of picking teeth with pins, safety pins or wooden matches, was illustrated at the Coroner’s Court to-day during an inquiry into the death of Annie Elizabeth Matthews, who died of tetanus at the Coast Hospital on December 16. Mrs. Matthews was only 19. Her husband, Sydney Ernest Matthews, who attended the inquest, did not look much older.

On December 9 there was great joy in the Matthews’ home, when the young wife gave birth' to a girl. For five days both progressed favorably, and everything appeared to bo going along splendidly, but on the morning of the 14th Mrs. Matthews complained of pains in the back of the neck. That night, when the young father arrived home, he found that his wife hacl been hurriedly taken to the Coast Hospital. He could not sec her that night, but, on the following morning, he was one of the first in the ward. Although his wife was seriously ill, he comforted, her by saying that she would he home for Christmas.

However, she died at 10- a.m. from lockjaw. The motherless baby is ; n the best of health.

In reply to the Coroner, Matthews said that his wife had a decayed tooth, and after meals she frequently inched it with a safety pin. Horace Leighton Spearman, medical officer at the Coast Hospital, said that there was a suggestion that the tetanus was due to a tooth being picked with a safety-pin. The Coroner, in returning a verdict that Mrs. Matthews died from tetanus, added that the evidence did not enable him to say wliat was the cause of the fatal disease.