Today's tombstone is for Charles H. Salmon (1858-1884). This stone rests in Succasunna United Methodist Church Cemetery in Succasunna, Morris County, New Jersey. The Find-A-Grave entry shows the stone and the newspaper article about the death.
What is the story behind this stone? The Weekly Wisconsin newspaper, dated October 22, 1884, on page 6 has this article:
"DRUGGED TO DEATH
Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 14 – Yesterday morning Charles H. Salmon died through the carelessness of a drug clerk. Salmon had been suffering from a chill, and going to a drug store called for eighteen grains of quinine. At 4 o’clock he took eight grains of the drug given him, and at 8 o’clock he took four more. An hour or so later he began to grow stupid and sleepy, and Drs. Freymann and Stanley Field, whose offices are near by, were hastily called in under the impression that the patient was suffering from a congestive chill. The doctors gave him a hypodermic injection of morphine, and the young man soon relapsed into a state of unconsciousness, and sank rapidly in spite of all efforts to save him, and about 12:30 he breathed his last. After his death the discovery was made that the drug clerk had carelessly put up a large dose of morphine instead of quinine. The victim had swallowed the entire dose, and then, by a combination of disastrous mistakes, the physicians called to save his life had cut in two the slender thread by which he then hung by giving him more morphine. When this discovery was made the brother of the deceased, with whom he lived, almost went crazy with grief, and the friends and neighbors who had gathered in were scarcely less horrified."
1 comment:
What a story. I'd say the family wanted to make sure that it was known for eternity who killed their son. Great find.
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