Age: 27
Sex: female
Date: 7 Aug 1935
Place: Campden Hill Road, Kensington, London
Louise Antoinette Perrin died in hospital after an illegal operation.
Her cause of death was given as septicaemia due to an illegal action, but it was stated that there was insufficient evidence to show who was responsible. The pathologist said that her death was due to heart failure following abscesses in the lung, secondary to septic infection.
She had been a Swiss subject and had been working as a children's governess in London.
A woman said that she had gone to an address in Earls Court Road where she said she met a doctor who said to her, 'I have done hundreds of these cases, but I have never had one go wrong'. The doctor was later seen by the police at his surgery in Lillie Road, Fulham who told him that they believed that he had treated Louise Perrin. However, they said that without the slightest thought or moment's hesitation he replied, 'That's wrong. I know no person called Perrin'.
Louise Perrin's landlady at a boarding house in Campden Hill Road in Kensington said that Louise Perrin came to her as a boarder on 9 July 1935, saying that her name was Helen Perry, noting that she had been sent by a certain woman. The landlady said that Louise Perrin later asked her to call for a doctor on 13 July 1935 and she was removed to a hospital.
When the woman that was said to have sent Louise Perrin to the Campden Hill Road boarding house and the doctor that was said to have treated her were asked to give statements, they both declined following legal advice.
The Coroner said, 'One can imagine a case of a drunken doctor who carried on this kind of work with entire disregard for any septic precautions, but we have no such evidence in this case'.
see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
see Portsmouth Evening News - Wednesday 07 August 1935
see Daily Herald - Wednesday 07 August 1935
see The Scotsman - Saturday 27 July 1935
see Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Wednesday 07 August 1935