View report page

12
Coroners. Dr. Munro, the Medical Officer, gave evidence that
deceased, when admitted, was suffering from tubercular disease of
the lungs, and was on this account at once ordered into the prison
infirmary, where he died. A post-mortem examination supported
this evidence by showing that both lungs were extensively diseased
and covered with tubercles. The jury returned a verdict of ' Death
from natural causes,' and the cause of this death will be so entered
in the Death Register. Here is an undoubted death from phthisis,
and, had no inquest been held, the cause of the death would have been
so certified by the Medical Officer; in consequence, however, of
this open verdict, the cause of death is in reality 'not stated' in
the Register. As inquests are held in about six per cent. of the
deaths in England and Wales, well-defined verdicts are essential
to the value of mortality statistics."
The opinions of the Medical Officers of Health, it
hardly need be stated, are quite in accord with this view
of the matter.
Unattested Deaths must be looked upon in quite as
objectionable a light as the vague and ill considered
verdicts of Coroners' Juries, and to be even more mischievous.
The cases of this kind during the past year, numbered,
in the entire District, 75, viz., 55 in Battersea, 13
in Wandsworth, 5 in Clapham, 1 in Streatham, and 1 in
Putney. It is to be apprehended that the recent Act
relating to Registration will effect but little good in
altering the present practice, so long as any discretionary
power is given to Local Registrars of receiving testimony
as to the causes of death other than that obtainable from
legally qualified and duly registered Medical Practitioners.
Sanitation.—A much larger amount of Sanitary work
appears to have been projected and acomplished throughout
the District in the past than in the previous year, (Vide
Table VI., Appendix). Taking, for example, the Tables
of Sanitary work executed during the 19 years in which
the Metropolis Local Management Act has been in force,
and adding together the length of new sewers constructed
in each year, it is found that no fewer than 626,316 feet