Mexborough and Swinton Times August 9, 1929

Bolton Boy’s Death.

Father’s Doubt Cleared Up

Whether a Bolton boy had died from pneumonia, as the doctor had at first certified., or whether because of a stone that was found later in his ear, was the question at  issue at an inquest held at Bolton on Wednesday.

The Deputy Coroner (Mr. C. R. Marshall), who sat with a jury, said there would have been no inquest necessary if the father had not raised the question, after the boy’s death, of the connection between the stone in his ear and his death.

The boy was Raymond Stone, aged 4, of 83, The Crescent, Bolton.

Walter Stone, the father, a colliery fireman, said the boy was running about as usual on Wednesday night last week, in his usual health. About six o’clock next morning he had a fit. Witness left an urgent message with Dr. Jaykar’s man at 6-45. The doctor came at 9-20, and admitted that he had not got the message till 8 o’clock. After having other fits, the child died at 4-25 p.m.

Witness asked the doctor that night and , again on the Sunday afternoon, whether he thought that a stone that had lodged in the boy’s ear some weeks before was connected with his death

The doctor had previously tried to get the stone out of the lad’s ear, and failing, the boy was taken to the Montagu Hosptal, Mexboro’. It was here stated, after examination, that there was nothing in his ear except a small speck on the drum             he at

Dr. M. Jaykar, of Goldthorpe, said he first thought that bronchial pneumonia was the cause of death. A post mortem examination showed that the meninges were normal and not inflamed, and the brain was normal. The right ear drum was not perforated. There was a foreign body in the ear. The examination showed that death was due to bronchopneumonia and pericarditis.

The Deputy Coroner: The thing that is troubling me is, if the doctor could see no one else could see the stone, why couldn’t the seed at the hospital? Did they x-ray him?

The doctor: There was no need for an x-ray.

The Deputy Coroner said the hospital people had suggested that the stone had dropped out between when the Doctor saw it and when the boy reached the hospital.

The father: The doctor has done very well for the child. It is not against Doctor Jaykar that I have any grievance. It was at the hospital where I think the mistake was made. The Deputy Coroner again comment on the fact that the stone was not found at the hospital.

“It is very difficult to see something in the absence of people who, if they were here, might be able to offer some good explanation,” he said, “but it seems strange that with their apparatus they were unable to find anything, even if it had no connection with the child’s death.”

The jury returned a verdict of “Death from natural causes.”

The Deputy Coroner said that that was the second inquest yet seen in the Bolton Urban District in two days, and post-mortem examinations had been necessary for both.

As the local authority had provided no mortar, it had been necessary to hold them up people’s own homes. Nothing could be more undesirable than that should have to be done. A death was sufficiently harrowing to the feelings of relatives without having a post-mortem examination in the house afterwards. He had asked the jury yesterday if they had any sway in the district to get a mortuary provided. The district had a population of 16,500.

Jurymen agreed that there was need for a mortuary.

PS Downes said he had conveyed the deputy coroner’s request to the Council yesterday, and he understood they were going to consider the matter at once.