The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-15 00:00:00

THE MTN, LONDON, WEDNESnAY. APRIL th, IRA

The other Orders of the Day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at a Quarter past Eight

o'clock.

INQUEST ON MR W. S. POYNTZ,
FORMERLY M.P.JOR MIDEIURST.

The death of this gentleinau presents a singular fact in
pathology. He expired suddenly, at his house at
Hampton Court, at his dinner, on the Bth of April, with
convulsive movements of the face and hands, the conse-
quence of a want of power in the heart to continue to carry
on the circulation. This cessation of nervous energy
in the heart was the result of an injury received by him
sheovresne on his head,a when his
ago. In
Mr. Poyntz fell from his
chin was forced on his breast,
and produced a dislocation in the spine, which was found
at the post morton zxamination made by Mr. Liston, of
Old Burlington-street, and Mr. Holberton, the medi-
cal attendant of Mr. Poyntz. Since that accident he had
never been so well as before, and during the last two or
three years had occasionally experienced brief faintings,
from a total cessation of the heart's action, presenting
symptoms precisely like those which were described to the
jury, but with this difference, that from the last, which
hated under a minute, he did not recover. The surgeons
discovered the processus dentatus of the spine displaced
row, one-thirdt hespinalin cdainaatri,e ter, just below the
thefo forwards, diminishing
m amarrow,
and, consequently,
skull, where the chord bezins to meet the brain. The injury
was evidently of old standing, and, in Mr. Holbe;ton's op;.
nion, was, through the heart, the cause of death. Thus was
"stablished the singular fact, that death resulted almost
instantaneously from an injury inflicted seven years before.
Rut few such cases are on record. The butler, Thomas
Francis, who had lived with Mr. Poyntz for 15 years,
stated at the inquest that the health of Mr. Poyntz, who
was 71 years old, was apparently better than usual on the
day of the fatal attack, though he was rather depressed in
spirits. He had taken nothing unusual, nor been from home
on that day. He always lived by medical rule. When the
fainting fits came on stimulants and dashes of cold water on
the face were formerly used, but the surgeon directed the
former to be discontinued, as they did not lessen their du-
ration, but rather increased them, and the attacks being
more frequent when the stomach was disordered, it was de-
sirable to withhold spirits and medicinal stimuli, from their
subsequent injury to the stomach. Singularly, no para-
lysis or injury of the intellect followed the injury of the
spine in 1833. All the valves of the heart were healthy,
and no unnatural sounds were ever detectable in the
chest. The dura mater of the brain was found attached
firmly to the skull, and effusion under the aranmoid
membrane. When well, the pulse counted 25 or 26 in
the minute, at other times not more than eight or nine.
Mr. Holberton distinctly considered that if the fall in
1833 had not occurred, Mr. Poyntz might have been alive
at this moment. He was very greatly respected at Hamp-
ton Court, where the breaking up of his establishment will
be much felt.—Times.