Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health 1906
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"(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 fifteen inquests were held on parishioners, including 35 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 121 cases. Twenty.seven 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 115
Deaths caused by violence (100), viz.:—
Accidental 79
Suicidal 21
100
Total 215
The inquests on Kensington parishioners were in the proportion of 8.4 per cent, on total
deaths, the rate in the Metropolis being lOl percent.; in England and Wales the rate was 6'8per
cent. The relative percentages in 1905 were 8.7, 9.9 and 6.8, respectively.
The deaths from violence (100) were equal to 0'56 per 1,000 of the population in Kensington;
the corresponding rates were 0.59 per 1,000 in London, as a whole, and 0'57per 1,000 in England
and Wales.
NOTIFICATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
The tables at pp. 38.42 show (1) the number of notifications of all the scheduled diseases in
London in the 17 years, 1890.1906; (2) the ages at notification in 1906, (3) the cases notified in the
several Metropolitan boroughs, (4) the relative prevalence of the several diseases at different periods
of the year, in Kensington and in London, (5) the notifications in Kensington, and in the several
divisions thereof, in 1906, and (6) the notifications, gross and proportional numbers, and percentages
of removals to hospital, in Kensington, in the years 1895.1906 inclusive. The Kensington notifications
in 1906 were 826; 656 in the Town sub.district, and 170 in Brompton. The notifications in
the ten years and other particulars are set out in the table at page 42.
Table XII. (Appendix 1, page 134) shows the streets, etc., where cases of the scheduled
diseases occurred; Table XI. (page 131) the streets with which deaths from these causes were
connected.
The cases notified in London were 35,356.