London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Kensington 1893

The annual report on the health, sanitary condition, &c., &c., of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington for the year 1893

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5
mental to the interests of the public, it was abolished by the
Public Health Act. In the parish of Rotherhithe the dual
notifications in 1892, appear to have been six only, the uncorrected
number of notifications being 347, and the corrected
number 341. The Rotherhithe Vestry objected to being called
on to " pay two or three times over for the same thing." But
the charge is not great, seeing that six notifications, at the
maximum fee of half-a-crown, cost no more than fifteen shillings.
The fees for 1,487 dual notifications at the maximum ofhalf-acrown
for each, would total up .£185 17s. 6dv, a small amount
indeed, compared with the benefit accruing to the Metropolis
from compulsory notification of cases removed to General
Hospitals alone. But of course the charge was not nearly so
great, seeing that a considerable proportion of the 1,487 cases
were notified by the medical officers of public institutions,
the fee payable in each of such cases being one shilling
only.
These being the facts of the case, it seemed to me that no
good would result from any representation on the subject to
the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and none was made by your
Vestry. The subject nevertheless has interest, and I have
prepared a table (page 146), which shows the number of
certificates for which, in 1893, the Asylums Board were
called upon by the Sanitary Authorities for repayment of
fees paid to medical men. In the second figure-column
the corrected number of ^notifications is given, duplicate
notifications being eliminated. The last column shows
the number of duplicate certificates for which the
Authorities of the several districts had to pay the statutory
fees. The duplicate returns were 2,114, equal to three
per cent, on total notifications. The duplicate cases in
Rotherhithe appear to have been 11 ; the number in Kensington
was 32.