View report page

43
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 ten inquests were held on parishioners, including 39 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 101
cases. Twenty-eight inquests were held on the bodies of non-parishioners who had died in
Kensington. All of the 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 128
Deaths caused by violence (82), viz.: —
Accidental 65
Suicidal 14
Manslaughter 1
Murder 2
— 82
Total 210
Of the 14 suicidal deaths, 7 belong to the Brompton sub-district and 7 to the Town subdistrict.
The inquests on Kensington parishioners were in the proportion of 7.5 per cent. on total
deaths, the rate in the Metropolis being 9.7 per cent.; in England and Wales the rate was 6.7 per
cent. The relative percentages in 1901 were 8.8, 8.9, and 6.7, respectively.
The deaths from violence (82) were equal to 0.46 per 1,000 of the population in Kensington;
0.73 per 1,000 in London, as a whole, and 0.63 per 1,000 in England and Wales.
NOTIFICATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
The most interesting event of the year, in connection with notification, was the temporary
addition of chicken-pox to the diseases scheduled in section 55 (8) of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891. This action was taken consequent upon the receipt of a letter from the Local Government
Board, in which it was suggested that the Council should consider the desirability of taking
steps to add chicken-pox, either permanently or temporarily, to the list of notifiable diseases, the
object proposed being to afford the Medical Officer of Health the means of detecting possible
sources of small-pox infection, which "are at present disregarded, and are therefore uncontrolled;"
"cases of small-pox not infrequently escaping detection owing to their being regarded merely as
cases of chicken-pox." In this connexion I may remark that during the latter half of 1901, and
prior to the receipt of the Board's letter, all known cases of chicken-pox in the borough—mostly
reported by head-teachers of elementary schools—had been visited, but of the bulk of the cases
no information was forthcoming. Upon receipt of the Board's approval of the Council's resolution
making chicken-pox notifiable, the order was advertised in the local newspapers, as required by the
Act, and a copy was sent, with an explanatory letter, to the several medical practitioners within the
borough, in conformity with the provisions of section 56 (3). The order was limited to a period of
six months from February 6th. Subsequently the London County Council obtained the approval
of the Local Government Board to an Order applying the provisions of section 56 (6) to the entire
Metropolis for a period of six months. The order, renewed on two subsequent occasions, expired
on January 6th, 1903.
The tables at pp. 45-48 show (1) the number of notifications of all the scheduled diseases in
London in 1902; (2) the relative prevalence of the several diseases at different periods of the year,
in Kensington and in London; (3) the notifications in the wards of the Borough, and (4) the caserate
and the death-rate of infectious diseases in Kensington in the year 1902, and in the ten
preceding years.