224 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



Explanation of the Occurrence. — This man was a mechanical 

 engineer ; and it is only too evident that his life, and those of his 

 wife and child, were sacrificed in a clumsy attempt to defraud 

 the Gas Company. 



Group III. 



Cases 8 and 9 were those of a married couple, J. and G. M., 

 who were asphyxiated in their bedroom at a Dublin hotel on 

 January 15th, 1903. They had arrived on the previous evening, 

 and engaged the room, to which they subsequently retired. Next 

 day nothing was seen of them, though it would appear that sounds 

 of stertorous breathing were heard in the narrow corridor into 

 which the room opened. Towards evening the hotel people 

 became alarmed, and directed the porter to effect an entrance, which 

 he did, through the window. Dr. Martin Dempsey was sent for. 

 He pronounced the woman dead, and ordered that the man, who 

 was lying unconscious beside her in bed, should be removed to 

 hospital. He was taken to Jer vis- street, and admitted into Dr. 

 Thompson's ward, but never recovered consciousness, and died on 

 the third day. Next day, at the Coroner's request, I performed 

 the autopsy of the female ; and from the notes taken at the time, 

 which are of a purely technical character, I will merely give the 

 fact that the blood was found between 60 and 70 per cent, 

 saturated with carbon monoxide. The man, J. M., lived three 

 days in Jervis-street Hospital. He continued to breathe ster- 

 torously, and was absolutely unconscious, incapable of any volun- 

 tary movement, and irresponsive to stimulation. He was treated 

 by inhalations of oxygen. On the day after his admission the 

 blood looked very dark and tarry : carbon monoxide could not be 

 demonstrated in it. The red corpuscles were 7,640,000, and the 

 white 10,000, per cubic millimetre. The differential leucocyte- 

 count worked out approximately normal. The temperature rose 

 from 101° on admission, to 103° on the following day. It was 

 106° on the morning of the third day, and towards evening it 

 was over 108°, when he died. 



Necropsy. — This was fully and carefully done by myself, with 

 the assistance of the house surgeons, Drs. Ryan and Mason, but 

 elicited no special abnormality. The blood in the cavities of the 

 heart was for the most part coagulated ; it did not yield a pink 



