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Letters to the Editor
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Eye drops
Review eye drop prescribing and purchasing
From Mr N. V. Morley, MRPharmS
It may be of interest to readers that Harold Shipman was not the first
doctor to unlawfully kill people by the use of morphine. One of the first
recorded medical practitioners to do so, Dr Robert Buchanan, was executed
in July 1895 for the murder of his second wife. It is claimed he was inspired
by the case of Carlyle Harris, a medical student, who had been convicted
of a similar crime the same year.
An interesting aspect of the Buchanan case was that he masked one of the
symptoms of morphine poisoning, ie, contracted pupils, by putting belladonna
eye drops into the victim’s eyes. Belladonna, of course, has the
effect of dilating pupils.
Although the symptoms of morphine poisoning are well known and have been
fully detailed at the trial of Shipman and the subsequent Judicial Inquiry,
it might be interesting to review the prescribing or purchasing of the
other modern equivalents of belladonna eye drops, such as atropine eye
drops.
Nigel Morley
Blisworth, Northampton
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