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93
DEATHS REGISTRATION AND BURIALS BILL.
(A Bill to amend the Law relating to the Registration of Deaths
and to Burials.)
The object of this Bill is to give effect to the principal recommendations
put forward in 1893 by the Select Committee on Death Certification (House
of Commons Paper, 373, of 1893), and intended to guard against (1) crime,
and (2) premature burial.
The Committee reported that they were much impressed " with the
" serious possibilities implied in a system which permits death and burial
" to take place without the production of satisfactory medical evidence of
" the cause of death. It is a most important duty of society to guard its
" members against foul play, and it appears to your Committee that, as fur
" as may be, it should be made impossible for any person to disappear
" from his place in the community without any satisfactory evidence being
" obtained of the cause of his disappearance. Your Committee, fortified
" with the weighty opinions of the witnesses who have appeared before
" them, have arrived at the conclusion that uncertified deaths should, as a
" class, cease to exist, and that means should be devised, whereby a medical
" certificate should be obtained in every case not certified by a registered
" medical practitioner in attendance."
The Departmental Committee on Coroners, which sat in 1009, in
their Second Report (page 20), state that . . . . "It is no fault of
"the law if premature burials do not take place. The present law of death
"certification offers every opportunity for premature burial and every
"facility for the concealment of crime.
"In connection with the law of coroners, we think that .
a certificate of death should not be accepted, from a medical practitioner
unless it slates that he has, by personal inspection of the body, satisfied
himself as to the fact of death. At present he may certify merely on the
information given by the relatives, and we have had evidence that many
certificates have been carelessly or even recklessly given."
During the seven years, 1907 to 1913 inclusive, there were 47,911 deaths
in England, and Wales, the causes of which were not certified.