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70
UNCERTIFIED DEATHS.
For the first time within my twenty-six years tenure of
office there was not one case of a not-certified death during
the year 1896; in other words every death was certified
either by a registered medical practitioner or by a coroner
after inquisition held. In England and Wales the deaths not
certified were 22 per cent of total deaths: the proportion in
London was 0 6 per cent.
The subject of uncertified deaths was considered, in the
Session of 1893, by a Select Committee of the House of
Commons, appointed" to inquire into the sufficiency of the
existing law as to the disposal of the dead, for securing an
accurate record of the causes of death in all 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 it is only necessary to cite the first two, as
follows:—
(1) "That in no case should a death be registered without production of
a certificate of the cause of death, signetd 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, hitherto, by the House, to
give effect to the recommendations of the Committee. The
Public Control Committee of the London County Council
have also dealt with the question, and arrived at conclusions,
on which they based a variety of recommendations, which
were fully set out in my annual report for 1894 (page 70).
These recommendations having been approved by the Council,
the Public Control Committee were" authorised to attend as
a deputation before the Lord Chancellor in support of the