Extracted from The Butler Herald (Butler, GA)
Tuesday, March 26, 1912

Mistakes Carbolic Acid for Bitters.

Young Man Drinks Disinfectant and Dies Within an Hour -- Tift County Man with Wife and Child. Well Known in Reynolds.

Tifton, March 19. -- W. W. Branch, a young farmer of the Chula section of Tift county, died at the home of his father, J. A. Branch, a few minutes before 4 o'clock this afternoon from drinking a disinfectant, mistaking it for bitters.

Mr. Branch had been ill for somet[i]me, but was apparently better this morning and had spent the night at his father's home. During the afternoon, he saw the bottle of disinfectant, and as it had a label similar to that of a brand of bitters, he thought it was bitters and took a drink. It was a carbolic acid preparation, and although a physician was telephoned for he died within an hour.

He leaves a wife, formerly Miss Mittie Payne, of Reynolds, and one child.
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Extracted from The Butler Herald (Butler, GA)
Tuesday, March 26, 1912

Local Paragraphs

Friends in this city of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Payne, of Reynolds, were very much grieved to learn of the tragic death of their son-in-law, Mr. W. W. Branch, who died at his father’s home, near Waterloo, Ga., last Tuesday afternoon about one hour after taking what he supposed at the time to be bitters, but proving later to be a deadly drug.