1859
MELANCHOLY CASE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE CALEDONIAN MERCURY AND DAILY EXPRESS.
Sir,—Permit me, through the medium of your journal, to inquire if there is such a person as a police surgeon in this city, and it is his duty to attend to persons found in the streets or in the common-stairs in a state of insensibility, and likewise if it is the duty of policemen to call him to such?[1]
In order to show why I ask the above questions, I beg to state the following case:—Early on the morning of Saturday the 5th November, a man of the name of Duncan M’Donald was found in an insensible state, having fallen down a stair in Church Lane, west end of Heriot Row.
By the assistance of two or three policemen he was taken to the Stockbridge station-house; where was allowed to remain till two o’clock in the afternoon, when he left of his own accord in a delirious state. After wandering about for four hours in the vicinity of Pitt Street,[5] Fettes Row, and Silvermills, he went into the house of a person of the name of Gilmour.
These seeing there was something wrong about his head, and that he had not his hat on, they concluded he was a madman, and sent for the police, who took him again to Stockbridge Office, where he remained till Sunday morning, when he was conveyed to the main office, and from thence to the Infirmary, where he died at two o’clock on Tuesday morning the 8th November, leaving a wife and five children—the eldest nine years, and the youngest five weeks old.
Now, what I wish to remark is, that during the whole time he was in the Police Offices no doctor, so far as I can learn, was got for him, and it was only discovered in the Infirmary that his skull had been fractured, and that its pressing on the brain caused his death. He was also robbed of all his money and a top-coat, and it was Saturday the 12th before word of what had happed reached his wife at Dundee, and although there were plenty of documents on his person to indicate where he belonged to.
The body lay eight days and fourteen hours in the Infirmary before interment. I may also mention that I could refer to another case of a similar description ending in the death of a young man twenty-one years of age. I will, however, for the present, not trespass further on your valuable space.—I am &c.,
A Ratepayer.
Edinburgh, Nov. 19, 1859
Caledonian Mercury, 22 November 1859
[Image of Fire and Police Stations, Hamilton Place, 1890. Edinburgh & Scottish Collection, Item 14851.]
[1] These are rhetorical questions. Edinburgh's Police Surgeon since 1854 had been Dr Henry Duncan Littlejohn, one of the models for Sherlock Holmes. Littlejohn will feature prominently in this compilation's coverage of 1860.
[2] Today’s Dundas St, north of Great King St, was Pitt St until 1967. It was renamed to avoid confusion with the Pitt St in Bonnington.
