Mary Allison Scott

Mary Allison Scott died suddenly from a mysterious cause. It was later said that she had died from nerve poisoning following a pneumonic infection.

She had been an errand girl at a chemist shop in Chester Road.

Her mother said that she had been all right up until the Saturday when she came home for dinner and said that a bottle had burst at the shop and had had a nasty smell that had caused her to vomit.

Her mother said that she took her dinner all right, as well as all her meals on the Sunday, and went to work again as usual on the Monday morning, although she had no breakfast, only a cup of tea.

Her mother said that she was herself out at work that afternoon, but was called home at about 3pm to find Mary Scott dead.

A neighbour said that she had heard Mary Scott complain on the Saturday of sickness, which she said she had told her had been caused by the smell from a burst bottle. However, she said that on the Sunday she appeared to have recovered. However, she said that on the Monday afternoon, at about 1.45pm, that she heard a thud from Mary Scott's room, and that when she went to see, she found Mary Scott lying in a corner. She said that Mary Scott told her that she had fainted.

She said that a doctor was then called for and that he ordered a warm bath and gave her a powder.

She said that Mary Scott had the bath and was wrapped up in a blanket but that she never came round and that she thought that Mary Scott must have died in the bath.

Another girl that worked at the chemist's shop said that she had been putting Mary Scott into the way of work on the Saturday. She said that they had been washing some cod liver oil bottles when Mary Scott became sick. She said that none of the bottles were broken on the Saturday and that there had been no offensive smell, except a little fishy smell from the oil bottles.

The doctor that came out to see Mary Scott on the Monday said that he thought that she had been all right when he had left her.

He said that he carefully examined her both before and after death, and could not make any definite pronouncement as to her cause of death, but thought that it was probably due to some irritant.

However, following her post-mortem, a pathologist at the Royal Infirmary said that he thought that her death had been due to a nerve poison that had followed pneumonic infection that had set up meningitis and acute congestion of the lungs.

Her inquest then returned a verdict of death from natural causes following pneumonia, which the Coroner said that Mary Scott had evidently been sickening for on the Saturday.