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87
In closing this portion of the Report, it seems
desirable to call attention to certain of the recommendations
contained in the Report of the
Select Committee on Death Certification which was
published at the close of 1893. The recommendations
are summed up at the close of the Report
as follows :—
(1.) That in no case should a death be registered
without production of a certificate of the cause of death
signed by a registered medical practitioner, or by a coroner
after inquest, or in Scotland, by a Procurator Fiscal.
(2.) That in each sanitary district a registered medical
practitioner should be appointed as public medical certifier
of the cause of death in cases in which a certificate from a
medical practitioner in attendance is not forthcoming.
(3.) That a medical practitioner in attendance should
be required, before giving a certificate of death, to personally
inspect the body, but if, on the grounds of distance
or for other sufficient reason, he is unable to make this
inspection himself, he should obtain and attach to his
certificate of the cause of death a certificate signed by two
persons, neighbours of the deceased, verifying the fact of
death.
(4.) That medical practitioners should be required to
send certificates of death to the Registrar, instead of
handing them to representatives of the deceased.
(5.) That a form of certificate of death should be
prescribed, and that, in giving a certificate, medical practitioners
should be required to use such form.
(6.) That it should be made a penal offence to bury or
otherwise dispose of a body, except in time of epidemic,
without an order from the Registrar, stating the place and
mode of disposal, which order, after it has been acted
upon, should be returned to the Registrar who issued it.