View report page

25
When a man dies in France the family doctor has to notify a strange
doctor called the Agent Verificateur. This doctor comes and examines
the body, asks questions and finally signs the certificate.
Some alteration in the Cremation Act of 1902 is required. The
present Act states that no crematorium can be erected within 50 yards
of the highway or 200 yards of a dwelling house. The latter restriction
was lifted from the Burial Act, 1855, for burial. These restrictions
have hampered the search for sites for more crematoria in London.
Golders Green Crematorium was built before the Act was passed.
Houses were built close up and the public use the grounds as a pleasure
resort. The process of cremation is inoffensive.
There is one matter which requires careful attention. The fees
charged by medical men for the medical certificates. The family
doctor fills in the first and the second doctor is a medical officer of
health, a police surgeon, a physician or surgeon of 50 beds at a hospital,
a medical man appointed by the cremation authority or the medical
referee. There is some considerable dissatisfaction concerning the
fees charged. It is true that the second doctor has a responsible task.
He must make a careful examination and must ask questions of different
people. I understand that £2 2s. is charged by numerous doctors.
Nothing should be done to discourage cremation. The best plan would
be, where cremation is proposed, to write at once to the Secretary of
the Cremation Society, 52 New Cavendish Street, W. 1, and ask him
to send the Society's medical referee to fill in the second form. His
fee is £1 1s.
Personally I consider that cremation is a public health matter and
the Medical Officer of Health should be called in to inquire and sign
in all cases, and that no fee should be charged. In fixing his salary
the local authority should take this into account and, when cremation
becomes general, further consideration would be necessary. Meanwhile
it is argued that if a tariff is placed on an article, it must cost more to
the consumer.
Having disposed of the case against cremation, I come now to a
view which is gaining strong support.
Why should cremation not be undertaken as a public measure by
municipal authorities? We isolate our infectious diseases at the cost
of the rates. A person who has small-pox or scarlet fever is sent to an
isolation hospital and it is paid out of the rates. In the same way, in