VIC Birth Index 24143
VIC Death Index. CHATFIELD, Ernest. CHATFIELD Henry Stewart & Anne Maria THOMAS, 1868, VIC 9514
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The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : Saturday 3 October 1868)
INQUEST
Tho district coroner, Mr. Candler, held an inquest at Prahran, on Friday, upon the body of a child named Ernest CHATFIELD, whose death had been occasioned by taking kerosene. Mrs. Chatfield is ill in bed, and attended by a nurse named Sarah Hague, whose daughter was on Tuesday employed to look after the children. Early in the evening, she heard this little fellow scream, and turning round, saw him with a kerosene can in his hand. This can, which was generally kept in the wash-house, had been left behind the kitchen door, and had no cork in it. The girl, Hague, called her mother, who gave the child salt and water to make it sick, and then carried it to the doctor. Mr. Fetherston said the child was brought to him on Tuesday evening, as stated by the nurse. It presented all the symptoms of acute inflammation of the stomach, and smelt strongly of kerosene. He did not think a child could swallow more than two or three teaspoonfuls of the oil, but that in this case was sufficient to cause death. The treatment adopted by the nurse was judicious, but the child died on Wednesday afternoon, about three o'clock. The jury returned as their verdict, "That the deceased died from the effects of taking kerosene, inadvertently left within its reach during the illness of its mother."