Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXIV No. 1, April 16-30, 2024
Colonial Stories – 1: Strange case of an unintended death by poison
-- by K.R.A. Narasiah
In Colonial Madras when the British had just started improving their trade and financial status some strange occurrences took place which are worth recalling. The accidental death of James Wheeler owing to arsenic poisoning is one such. It took place in 1693, barely fifty years after the East India Company set up base here. Wheeler was a Council Member and so very important in the Madras social order of the times.
On August 30, 1693, Wheeler, after having taken a dose of Browne’s medicine for better health had set out for a walk. He did not appear at the council meeting held in the forenoon and this was not normal as he never missed the meetings. A word was brought by messenger that Wheeler was seized with a serious illness. Within a while another message followed informing of Wheeler’s passing away.
Naturally the council meeting was adjourned and members rushed to his house. While going, the then president of the council Higginson was handed a note by surgeon Samuel Browne, that read “Honourable Sir, I have murdered Mr. Wheeler, by giving him arsenic. Please to execute justice on me the malefactor, as I deserve.” The medicine administered in the morning was inadvertently pounded by a servant in a mortar used for arsenic. Immeasurably distressed and feeling terribly guilty, Dr. Browne, wrote the above.
Incidentally the hospital facility was run by the Anglican Clergy, which maintained St Mary’s Church within the Fort precinct. The Clergy received a sum of 50 pagodas annually towards maintenance from the Government at Fort St George. John Heathfield, recalled from civil service, was installed as the Head Surgeon in 1687. He died the following year. Samuel Browne, a locally available ship surgeon, was summoned to fill the vacancy created by Heathfield’s death, since the chosen surgeon Edward Bulkley from London could not arrive in Madras in time. The latter eventually arrived and set up practice as well.
Further to his role as a surgeon, Browne was avidly searching for local plants for their medicinal value. He collected plants and made notes on their medical relevance further to other traditional uses. There being two surgeons, the other namely Dr. Bulkley, was asked to examine and after the autopsy, he reported that though not much could be seen, from appearances, the symptoms before death indicated death by poisoning. Since there were not many methods available and since the doctor himself had admitted, it was determined that the death was due to poisoning and both Dr. Browne and his servant who pounded the medicine were committed to custody.
After the due trial, the Grand Jury acquitted the surgeon by bringing in the “bill of Ignoramus”. (‘ignoramus’ means ‘we do not know’ and this was the formula grand juries wrote on a bill of indictment when they decide that there was not enough evidence for a person for further trial.)
