The Express.
London, England, 1852-07-12 00:00:00

FATAL HEAT OF.THE WEATHER.

The number of sudden deaths directly attributable
to the extreme heat of the weather inmate . ith every day.
At II o'clock on Saturday night Mr. O. 8. Brent held an
inquest at the Wellington, University-street, St. Pancras,
on Mr. Oscar Webb, meil 39, cheeremonger. 109, Totten.
ham-court-road. On Friday afternoon, deceased, while
standing in the shop, was visited by a friend, who said to
" It's a very hot day." To which deceased replied,
' " very," and instantly dropped dead. Mr. Derbyshire
made a post marten examination and found in the right
ventricle of the heart a rent produced by the heat of the
weather, and which caused an effeelos into the pericardium,
and that produced death. The heart had been previously
diseased. The coroner acid that he held the inquest at so
late an hour iu consequence of the petrified state of the
body, and the intense heat of the weather, which rendered
it so dangerous to keep a body in that state in the house,
that Mr. Carter, the landlord of the Wellington, had kindly
allowed it to be removed to his premises. Fhe jury unhe-
sitatingly returned is virdiet in accordance with the medi-
cal evidence.
On Friday, Mr. G. S. Brent held an inquest at the Green
Man, Harrow, on Michael Curike, aged 40, a labourer in
the employ of Mr. Ouodchild, proprietor of the "Forty
Acres Form." On Tucslay deceased. while haymaking,
staggered forward and fell. Ma fellow-labourers, upon
raising hire up, found him in the agonies of death, and he
only survived four hours. Mr. Hewlett made apeee ~ion
examination, and found that d,ath resulted from a coup de
50.4i1. Mr. Brent held a second inquest at the Steward's
Arms, Shepherd's Market, Notting-hill, upon Elisabeth
Osborne, a nursery-mail, aged 14, in the family of Mrs.
Kingston. Deceased wheeled the children to Kenaal-green,
a dimwits, of two miles. Upon returning home she com-
plained of headache. and laid herself outside the bed, from
which she fell to the floor a few hours afterwards a lifeless
corpse, and quite black. Dr. Frost, who performed a post
mocks' examination, gave it as his opinion that death re-
mitted from coup de oled. Mr. Wakley has held two in-
quests in similar curs.
Communications have reached London from several die
trice announcing numerous fatal catastrophes from the
same cause. Two such deaths occurred in the neighbour-
hood of Newport, Monmouthshire, on Wednesday, from
the extreme beat of the sun ; the one was of a man mowing
grass, and the other a young fi male in the field.
A Paris contemporary of Friday says : The great heat of
the last few days has occasioned many cases of mental
alienation ; on Wednesday not fewer than seven persons
giving evident dos of insanity were found in the streets.
In the evening of that day a tradesman residing in the Rue
Pagevia illosiod into the Seine at Choisy-le Rol', but was
rescued bean be could commit suicide. lie could emirs
no sem Ace the act ; and on being taken before a medical
Mil lOW declared to be mad. On the same evening a
female, aged 14, who formerly kept a wine-shop at Mantes,
threw hermit into the river at Choosy-le-Roi, but was saved
by two persons who were passing. She also said that she
could not explain why she attempted self destruction. All
these persons have, by order of the Prefect of Police, been
admitted to asylums. The heat of yesterday was not tem-
pered by the pleasant breeze which prevailed during the
two preceding days. The thermometer of M. Chevalier
marked, at two o'clock, 30 deg. 8-10ths of centigrade, or 871
of Fahrenheit. Several horses hare fallen dead in the
'meets in the course of the last few days by the excessive
beat. Yesterday one fell dead under an omnibus belonging
to a school just as it came to the descent from the Pont des
St. Peres. Madame Gonzales, widow of an army surgeon,
and mother of M. Emmanuel Gonzales, an author of some
note, died at Paris, on Thursday, of apoplexy caused by
the extreme heat As M. Laureau, the manager of an
sating-house, in the Rue Fontaine-Moliere, was the evening
before last standing at his counter conversing cheerfully
with wine friends, he suddenly fell lifeless to the ground.
He was immediately bled, but without avail. lie was only
38 years of age, and was a man of a very robust constitu-
tion.