Tragedy of a good doctor’s accidental death
This week's column by Jonathan Smyth recalls a doctor who accidentally died after self-medicating for a toothache.
In modern day Ireland the medical profession is under tremendous strain with a growing population and yet it is one of the most necessary professions and a country’s health service should never have a price put on it.
When you think of doctors, we rarely think that they may get sick and need a general practitioner of their own. Naturally, everyone gets sick sometime. Years ago, I remember being surprised when a doctor told me that he could not prescribe medicine for himself, and that self-diagnosis is very much not the done thing. An independent eye is important, he asserted. The phrase ‘physician heal thyself’ mentioned in Luke’s Gospel cannot be interpreted literally by the medical profession, it seems. Naturally, the doctor’s primary aim is to treat patient’s ailments.
The death of Dr Mark Moore bears testimony to the dangers of unsupervised self-medication. And yet, he was in severe pain caused by an ‘attack of neuralgic face-ache’ which must have left him demented. In the early flush of youth, Mark Moore was only twenty-nine years of age when he succumbed to death. He seemed destined for an extensive career, having followed his father’s long-established footsteps into medicine, but sadly for him, fate had other plans.
His father, Dr Mark Moore snr was a respected retired physician and surgeon who previously served in the employ of Cavan Workhouse as a medical officer from 1859 to 1893: he died in October 1898 at the family home at Farnham Street, Cavan. Carmel O’Callaghan of the Bailieborough Heritage Society notes that at onetime Dr Moore snr had a dispensary at ‘The Laurels,’ Virginia Road, Bailieborough, prior to taking up work in Cavan. The Laurels, she adds, became home to numerous doctors over the years.
Mark jnr. was one of five brothers and had at least one sister. He continued the family medical practice on Farnham Street from about the time of his father’s death. The son was already a practising doctor by his mid-twenties and there are further records of him providing temporary duty in the Ballinagh dispensary district in May 1900.
The junior Mark Moore’s death certificate shows that he died ‘on the 24th day of February 1903 from the effects of an overdose of morphia (morphine) accidentally taken.’ Moore was not married. Moore passed away in the comfortable surroundings of his house on Farnham Street. Everyone liked Dr Mark who they said had a ‘gentlemanly bearing, upright conduct, and gentleness of manner,’ which he ‘combined with his skill as a medical practitioner.’
On Monday, February 24, Moore was in great form and made the ‘usual’ round to attend his patients. Later, that same day at 2 o’clock members of the Moore family found him lying in an unconscious state on a sofa in his study. The family sent for help and not that long afterwards there were three doctors attending the scene. They were the doctors Malcolmson, McCabe and Acheson. No matter what help they tried rendering to Moore, nothing could be done to save him, and his soul departed this life at around 11:30am on the next morning which was a Tuesday. Sympathy was extended to his mother Mrs Moore, and to all his siblings.
Morphine
An inquest heard about the doctor’s last movements. The reason he needed the morphine was due to a problem he was having with his teeth. The inquest heard that he was in the process of arranging a visit to a dentist in Dublin, called Mr O’Duffy.
The inquest happened later that Tuesday evening. Present at the proceedings were John Fay and John Fegan, the Justices of the Peace, and a jury made up of: Bernard Brady (foreman), Daniel Reilly, Laurence Flood, Joseph Taggart, Andrew Leonard, Thos McGuinness, Roert Ramsay, William H. Morris, Robert Hamilton, Edward Morgan, Terence McCann, Robert Cinnamond and Robert McDowell.
Many questions were asked, and others seem to go unanswered. It seems unclear why he needed the quantity of morphia he bought. At length, during the inquest, Miss A.W. Moore, a sister of Mark, underwent questioning about his last movements. He was alive that morning, on the Monday, around 11:30am and she returned to inform him it was lunchtime. Ten minutes henceforward she went back to his study to find him stretched out on the sofa and unconscious. It was at this time that she summoned the three doctors.
David Campion an employee at the chemists owned by Miss O’Connor gave the following testimony to the inquest: ‘I am employed in Miss O’Connor’s chemist shop in this town (Cavan). I knew the deceased, Dr Moore. He was in the habit of buying medicine in Miss O’Connor’s. He came into the shop yesterday about 10 o’clock. He got nothing then.’ But continuing, Campion, got to the crux of the matter when he told them that Moore came back, he said: ‘He came back about 10 o’clock, and asked for 2 oz of solution morphia. He did not say what he wanted it for at that time.’ According to Campion, they had not a lot of the solution ready, and he said that the chemist was happy to make more up and send it over to him. The doctor declined and asked for the powder and said he would concoct it himself. Campion re-affirmed his position that they could make up the solution. The doctor insisted that the unmixed grains ‘would do.’ Bowing to his insistence, Campion obediently relented.
Artificial respiration
It was noted in an earlier report that the quantity of the drug consumed was so large that it made all medical aid useless in the face of it taking effect. The three doctors tirelessly rendered him what assistance they could and to quote this newspaper they made constant attempts to save him ‘during the night and on until the following morning, artificial respiration was kept up by relays of military and police, only to end, as expected, in death.’
The late doctor’s relations who attended the funeral included his brother Mr. W. Moore, and brothers-in-law Rev Dowse, Co Wicklow, and Mr Rainsford, District Inspector. Dr Moore had been a favourite amongst everybody in the community and none more-so, it was said, than amongst the poor, to whom he had shown much ‘solicitation and care.’ His demise was a tragedy felt by all.
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