The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1890-06-14 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

MYSTERIOUS POISONING OASES.  DISEASED PORK SUPPOSED TO BE THE CAUSE.  The first week of June this year should hereafter be known in Coventry as a week of local horrors. Two suicides of a tragic character were followed by the poisoning of a couple of children in Coventry, and of an elderly woman living at Stoke. The investigation into the latter case has not been carried as far as the Coventry ones have been already, but enough was learnt at the inquest on Mrs. Salmons to suggest some connection between all the cases—that infected pork produced the mischief which led to the death of the woman.  The Coventry case is a peculiarly distressing one. At No. 5, Steam-yard, East-street, Hillfields, lived games Hewitt, a labourer, his wife, and four children aged respectively four, nine, thirteen, and fifteen years. On Saturday week Mrs. Hewitt bought a hand of American pork at a very low price (40. per pound) ; this she cooked on the Sunday, and served it up cold fel her husband's dinner on both the Tuesday and Wednesday. On the first day Hewitt experienced no ill-effects from eating the meat, probably because he partook of so little, but on Wednesday he was attacked with vomiting and purging, and these were followed by exhaustion, which kept him from work part of that day and the next. The family, however, attached no suspicion to the meat, nor to the young potatoes and herb beer which they had with the bacon, for 3y all sat down to dinner to it —now fried as well as iled—on the Thursday, and the wife took her sick husband MO. 3 of the meat. He, however, happily, rejected it, not because, it would seem, he at all suspected its lharacter, but because he was unable to t anything of the sort. Immediately after, at Ale table downstairs, there followed the first ever, of what Dr. Iliffe at the inquest called 'that terrible day." The youngest child, Gertrude, who ate neat very heartily, showed symptoms similar to those which bad laid the father low ; than a boy Walter, nine years old, was attacked, ' the two elder children and the mother wcie all rendered helpless. The circumstances should have proved so alarming, one would have thought, to induce the summoning of medical aid without delay, but it was not till evening that the father called in Dr. Webb Fowler. His suspicions were at once aroused as to the food, and he wisely seized the romn tilts of the dinner and the uncooked part of the joint. At midnight on Thursday the youngest child died, and Walter —having been seen by Dr. Soden, as well as Dr. Fowler m the meantime—succumbed twelve or fourteen hours after. Mrs. Hewitt and the other patients got better, but are scarcely well yet. The coroner's inquest on Monday was directed to finding out the cause of death. There seemed to be no doubt that the whole family had been poisoned, but with what ? There was a concurrence of opinion, too, that the mischief was in the poik when consumed ; but what was the nature of the virulence? The post-mortem examination had not enabled this to be ascertained, but the medical men interested in the case suppose that there were microbes in the animal from which the bacon was taken. There is also the suggestion, put forward by Dr. Webb Fowler, that the meat having been placed near an open drain became impregnated with sewer gas. This in itself may have poisoned the pork or have helped to give increased virulence to microbes already existing. The aid of the medical staff of the Local Government Board which Dr. Fenton, as city medical officer of health, invoked, has not been given, though it is hoped the department may be willing to make investigation in London. At any rate the opinion of experts will be obtained on the meat, and pending their report, the coroner's enquiry has been adjourned for a fortnight. The cases have necessarily caused much interest, and some alarm as to the possibilities of evil lurking in the food we eat.  they ai.., boiled--on