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whereby it would be made clear whether the subscriber was or
was not duly qualified, i.e., registered. The Registrar-General
approved the suggestion, and his attention having, at my instance,
been again directed to the subject by the Society of Medical
Officers of Health last year, he has, in the new form of
certificate brought into use at the commencement of the current
year, added a line immediately below the place for signature
on which the subscriber is required to enter his " registered
qualification." It is not probable that any unregistered practitioner
would venture to use the certificate, should he inadvertently
become possessed of it, as might happen through the almost unavoidable
ignorance in which the Sub-district registrars are left,
from the want of an official list of registered practitioners. Not
long ago I ventured to direct the attention of the RegistrarGeneral
and the Registrar to the General Medical Council to the
importance of these officers being supplied with the Medical
Register, issued annually by the Council; but these gentlemen,
while appreciating the suggestion, were unable to hold out any
hope that it would or could be carried into effect, inasmuch as the
Government are unwilling to incur the necessary expense, and as
the Register is too inaccurate to be implicitly relied on in doubtful
cases. But now that medical men are required, under a
penalty for neglect, to give certificates of the cause of
death, some means ought to be found of restricting the use of
them in any form, to registered practitioners. The subdistrict
Registrars do not knowingly accept a certificate
from a non-qualified practitioner, but in some cases where
a medical title is used by a stranger, "invalid" certificates
obtain currency. In all other irregular cases the registrar returns
the death as "not certified," making use, nevertheless, of the
information as to the cause of death contained in the certificate !
If it were made an offence at law for any unregistered practitioner
to give a certificate of death, the difficulty would probably be
met. At present I do not know what course would be best to
adopt, unless to hold inquests on the bodies of all persons who
die under the treatment of non-qualified practitioners. This
course was adopted in some cases in the northern part of the
parish last year, and it led, in at least one instance, to the unsatisfactory,
not to say discreditable result, of the Philadelphian M.D.
who attended a sick child, calling in a registered practitioner at
the last gasp, so that he might certify to the cause of death. An
inquest, however, was held on the body, and the death was
found to be due to quite a different disease to that entered in
the certificate. I may add that the Board of Guardians, laudably
anxious to put a stop to the scandal, took proceedings at
the Hammersmith Police Court against an unregistered practitioner
for signing a vaccination certificate, and thus " falsely pretending
to be registered." The case was dismissed, however, and
no further steps have been taken in the matter. But something
should be done for the protection of the poor, who are