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26
though it is certainly somewhat greater in proportion to
the number treated in the preceding year.
Violent and sudden Deaths.—Deaths from Doubtful
causes.—Coroner's Inquests.—It appears that 13 Coroner's
Inquests took place in 1867. The verdicts returned were,
deaths from accident, 3; from suicide, 3; from natural
causes, 5; found dead (cause of death unknown), 1.
The same irregularities as I have referred to in many of
my previous reports, and as it appears to me in utter defiance
of the provisions of the Registration Act, have been
practiced during the year; and I cannot help thinking
there is no judicial proceeding in this country that needs
reforming so much as that of the Coroner's Inquisition.
Sanitation of the Year.—Upon this subject I beg to reproduce
a passage from my first contribution to the Annual
Report of the Medical Officers of Health; and I do this
because it has been most satisfactory to me to find that
nearly every improvement suggested by me more than 12
years ago has either been already realized, or in a fair way
of becoming so.
"A more complete system of tunnel sewerage, more substantially
built, and far more capacious than at present,
appears to be much needed, as is also a system of tubular
pipe drainage for house purposes.
" Owing to the elevated site of this parish, drainage becomes
an easy matter. On almost every side there is a
good fall for surface and underground drainage, and I believe,
if these were sufficiently carried out, Clapham might
be rendered one of the most healthy districts of the
Metropolis, as, by such means, we should get rid of that
most revolting abomination, the cesspool system."
The completion, since the above was written, of about
15 miles of new sewers, at a cost of over £60,000, can have
left, it is hoped, but few cesspools to be dealt with; and
it is with no small amount of satisfaction that I perceive a
prospect of their speedy and total abolition.
The table, No. 6, Appendix, further shows, that an