Report of the Ministry of Health / Colony of Singapore.

  • Singapore. Ministry of Health.
Date:
[1964]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Ministry of Health / Colony of Singapore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the hospital specimens. The labels on the exhibits were extremely helpful and the poisons, if any, present in them were purer and easier to manipulate than the poisons present in the specimens from the victims. The exhibits included pills, tablets, or mixtures. Among the substances encountered were chloram¬ phenicol, digoxin, marplan, probanthine, warfarin etc. Many of the exhibits were mixtures and in one particular type of tablets, five substances were de¬ tected, namely amidopyrine, dipyrone, phenobarbitone, papaverine and homatropine. Among the Chinese, the use of Chinese medicines for various ailments is a traditional practice. On occasions excessive lead and arsenic were found in the medicines. In one case a baby developed cyanosis of the extremities after taking a brown powder containing 1,000 parts per million of lead and 80 parts per million of arsenic. In another case a brown powder for use externally was found to contain 12,000 parts per million of lead. Insecticides such as DDT, gammaxene, diazinon and malathion were frequently encountered. Among the six fatal cases, four were due to malathion, one was due to DDT and gammaxene and the other gammaxene alone. Two of the fatal cases due to malathion were from Kuching while the one due to gammaxene was from Jesselton. In most of the cases, large quantities of the insecticides were isolated from the stomachs. Cases due to overdose of depressant drugs such as the hypnotics and sedative were many with the barbiturates heading the list. In a fatal suicide attempt by a teenage girl, fragments of amytal tablet were recovered from the stomach. The stomach and contents was also found to contain four grammes of amytal. Among the non-barbiturate sedative class, there were three cases of gluthethimide (doriden) and three cases of methaqualone (melsedin), but only one was fatal. There was also one death arising from ingestion of tranquilizer meprobamate. Slightly more than two grammes of meprobamate were found in the stomach and contents. Cases of poisoning due to narcotics included opium, morphine and codeine. In one case a seaman, a drug addict, was found dead in his cabin and beside him was a hypodermic needle and a few packets of white powder suspected to be morphine. Analysis of the exhibits as well as the organs of the deceased revealed the presence of morphine and the amount found in the liver was 0.14 milligrammes morphine per 100 grammes liver. Cases from Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei numbered 19 as compared with 12 for last year. Of these, four were veterinary cases involving two racing ponies, a dog and a goat. In one case from Kuching, a housewife admitted having placed in a cup of tea meant for her husband some ash from the web of a gas-lamp. The keen-eyed husband, on observing what took place, refused to drink the tea but instead brought it to the local Police. The tea was found to contain traces of thorium, which is used in the manufacture of gas mantles,