Gertrude Hullett - Her Treatment

Her Treatment

Gertrude Hullett, 50, became depressed after Jack's death. Adams prescribed for her large amounts of sodium barbitone and sodium phenobarbitone. She had told Adams on frequent occasions of her wish to commit suicide.

On 17 July 1956, Hullett wrote out a cheque for Adams in the amount of £1,000; to pay for an MG car which her husband had promised to buy him. Adams paid the cheque into his account the next day, and on being told that it would clear by the 21st, asked for it to be specially cleared, so that it would arrive in his account the next day.

On 19 July, Hullett is thought to have taken an overdose, and was found the next morning in a coma. Adams was unavailable and a colleague, Dr Harris, attended her until Adams arrived later in the day. Not once during their discussion did Adams mention to Dr Harris that Mrs Hullett had had depression or her barbiturate medication. The two doctors decided a cerebral hemorrhage was most likely, due partly to contracted pupils. This, however, is also a symptom of morphine or barbiturate poisoning. Moreover, her breathing was shallow; typical of an overdose-induced coma. On 21 July, a pathologist by the name of Dr Shera was called in to take a spinal fluid sample, and immediately asked if her stomach contents should be examined in case of narcotic poisoning, but Adams and Harris both opposed this. After Shera left, Adams visited another colleague, Dr Cook, at the Princess Alice Hospital in Eastbourne and asked about the treatment for barbiturate poisoning. He was told to give doses of 10 cc of a relatively new antidote Megimide every five minutes, and was given 100 cc to use. The recommended dose in the instructions was 100 cc to 200 cc. Dr Cook also told him to put Hullett on an intravenous drip. Adams did not follow these suggestions.

The next morning, at 8:30 a.m., Adams called the coroner to make an appointment for a private post-mortem. The coroner asked when the patient had died and Adams said she had not yet. Dr Harris visited again that day and Adams still made no mention of potential barbiturate poisoning. When Harris left, Adams administered a single injection of 10 cc of the Megimide. Hullett developed broncho-pneumonia and on the 23rd at 6:00 a.m., Adams gave Hullett oxygen. She died at 7:23 a.m. on the 23rd. The results of a urine sample taken on the 21st were received after Hullett's death, on the 24th. It showed she had 115 grains of sodium barbitone in her body, twice the fatal dose.

Later, before Adams' trial in 1957, the Director of Public Prosecutions's office compiled a table of patients who had been treated with Megimide and Daptazole for barbiturate poisoning between May 1955 and July 1956 at Saint Mary's Hospital in Eastbourne, where Adams had worked one day a week as an anaesthetist. Six of those patients had been treated in the first half of 1956, before Hullett's death. All but one had been put on a drip, and several had taken a higher dose than Hullett. It was presumed by the DPP, therefore, that Adams must have heard of these cases and the use of Megimide.