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cases, and especially for detecting them when death may have been due to poison, violence, or
criminal neglect." The recommendations of the Committee were summed up in ten paragraphs,
of which the first two were 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.
"(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."
No action has been taken, so far, to give effect to the recommendations.
INQUESTS.
Two hundred and thirty-two inquests were held on parishioners, including 43 at places
-without the borough, mostly at public institutions to which the deceased persons had been
removed for treatment. The cause of death is stated to have been ascertained by post-mortem
examination in 119 cases. Thirty-four inquests were held on the bodies of non-parishioners
who had died in Kensington. All inquests in the borough were held at the coroner's court at the
Town Hall.
The causes of death may be classified as follows : —
Deaths caused by disease 122
Deaths caused by violence (110), viz.:—
Accidental 92
Suicidal 17
Manslaughter 1
Total ... 232
Of the 17 suicidal deaths, 2 belong to the Brompton sub-district and 15 to the Town
sub-district.
The inquests on Kensington parishioners were in the proportion of 8.8 per cent, on total
deaths, the rate in the Metropolis being 8.9 per cent. ; in England and Wales the rate was 6.7 per
cent. The relative percentages in 1900 were 8.7, 9.4 and 6.3, respectively.
The deaths from violence (110) were equal to 0.62 per 1,000 of the population in Kensington
; 0.75 per 1,000 in London, as a whole, and 0.63 per 1,000 in England and Wales.
VACCINATION.
The table at page 35 is a return respecting vaccination in Kensington in 1900 (the complete
return for 1901 not yet being due) compiled by Mr Shattock, the vaccination officer, whose diligent
discharge of the onerous duties of his office under the new Act, and previously, deserves recognition.
It appears that of 3,594 infants whose births were returned in "Birth List Sheets" (col. 2) during
the year, 2,884 were successfully vaccinated, and 4 were returned as "insusceptible of vaccination."
In 14 cases vaccination was postponed by medical certificate: 375 infants died before
attaining the age for vaccination ; in 28 cases infants were removed to other districts, the vaccination
officers of which were duly notified of the fact ; whilst some 245 cases, from" removal
to places out of the parish unknown, or which cannot be reached, and cases not having been
found," were unaccounted for. These cases are, with those of"conscientious objectors"(40,
against 55, 5, and 31, in the three preceding years respectively), equivalent to a "loss" of 6.8 per
cent., as compared with the number of births registered; the losses in the ten preceding years
having been 6.7, 8.0, 8.7, 7.7, 8.4, 9.0, l0.1, 10.7, 12.7 and 8.1 per cent. Kensington occupies a
position superior to that of the Metropolis, as a whole; for, as stated in a recent annual report of
the Local Government Board, the average of lost cases in the metropolitan district so far
back as 1896, was 26.4 per cent.; so that at that date more than one-fourth of the children
born were without the protection against small-pox afforded by vaccination: the proportion
at the present time is even higher. It is but too probable, moreover, that a large proportion
of the children not vaccinated prior to the new Act coming into operation, will remain unvaccinated,
and be liable to small-pox. Mr. Shattock states that false registration, i.e., wrong
addresses entered on the birth list sheets, is his greatest difficulty: the children cannot be
traced. But, on the whole, the tide appears to have turned, the "loss" of cases, in Kensington,
having been sensibly less in 1900 than in 1899. The current epidemic of small-pox has
given a great stimulus to vaccination, and led to much revaccination. One good feature in the new
Act, apart from its relatively greater success in increasing the number of vaccinations, is that it
provides for the use of glycerinated calf-lymph, and so cuts the ground from under the feet of