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Section 7 of the Act requires that when a still birth is registered,
the relative giving information must either (1) deliver to the Registrar
a written certificate that the child was not born alive, signed by a
registered medical practitioner or certified midwife, who was in attendance
at the birth or who has examined the body of the child; or (2)
make a prescribed declaration to the effect that no practitioner or
midwife was present or has examined the body, or that his or her
■certificate cannot be obtained, and that the child was not born alive.
When any case as indicated in (2) arises, i.e., where no doctor or
midwife was in attendance at birth, or where his or her certificate
cannot be obtained, the Registrar should communicate with the Medical
Officer of Health for inquiry to be made in order that he may be in a
position to inform the Registrar whether he is satisfied that the child
was really still-born, or whether there are any suspicious circumstances
attaching to the case.
In order to remove any misapprehension that might exist in the
matter, the Ministry of Health, in a circular issued on 15th August)
1927, drew attention to the provisions of the Cremation Act, 1902, and
the Cremation Regulations, 1920, the former of which provides that no
cremation of human remains shall take place except in an approved
Crematorium, and the latter defines the expression " human remains "
as including the remains of a still-born child; and it was thus made
clear that such remains cannot lawfully be disposed of by burning in a
hospital furnace or incinerator.
Deaths.
The "recorded" death rate is the rate obtained by calculating the
number of "net" deaths per 1000 of the population. From the total
deaths registered is deducted the number who were non-resident
persons, and, after subtracting these, the number of deaths of
civilian Hampstead residents who died outside the Borough is added.
The total net deaths during 1927 was 1,055, or 12.2 per 1000 of the
population, as compared with 928 in the preceding year. These deaths
were distributed among the various Wards as follows:—No. 1 (Town)
139, No. 2 (Belsize) 168, No. 3 (Adelaide) 139, No. 4 (Central) 122,
No. 5 (West End) 164, No. 6 (Kilburn) 188, and No. 7 (Priory) 135.