David C. Dow, Cambridge Medical Examiner, disclosed last night that Walter A. Pollano '50 died in his Adams House room from an overdose of sleeping pills last Tuesday. A new death certificate will be signed listing "suicide while depressed."

After a week of investigation at the Medical School, analysts last night detected "poisoning by a barbiturate," common ingredient in easily purchased sleeping tablets, as the cause for Pollano's death. Dow explained that such tablets can often be bought without doctor's prescriptions at many drug stores.

Pollano, a junior who planned to graduate next-year, had just received refusals from two medical schools. He was in group two scholastically and was intending to follow his father in the medical profession.

Follows Long Investigation

Dow sent "suspicious" tissues to the Medical School's department of Legal Medicine for a careful check following his autopsy last Tuesday night. The analysis was rushed by Alan R. Mortiz, Francis Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine, and last night he and Dow made a final examination in which they specified the "barbiturate poisoning" as direct cause for death.

Anthony G. Scott '50, Pollano's room-mate in Adams F-21 explained last night that he had never known Pollano to take pills of any sort. The night before his death, Pollano had been studying past midnight and apparently had taken the tablets while worried about exams and depressed by his failure to be accepted at a medical school.