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although it is prohahle that the omission to procure medical assistance
had its origin in a desire to avoid the removal of the children. Be this
as it may, the painful exposure of parental neglect thus brought about
did good; and if inquests were more frequently held, e.g. in cases
where medical advice is not sought until the patient is moribund—•
cases, that is, in which the doctor cannot honestly certify that he has
"attended" the patient—much benefit would arise: and, although the
Coroner's Court is theoretically one simply of inquisition, viz., to
ascertain the cause of death, it might thus render good service in the
cause of "preventive medicine."
As an illustration of culpable carelessuess, and to show in what
unsuspected ways disease gets spread, it may be mentioned that a
monthly-nurse had voluntarily undertaken to assist in nursing some
sick children, and this at a time when she was hourly expecting to be
called to a lying-in chamber and was paying daily visits to the
patient. Shortly after the lady's confinement scarlet fever broke out
in her family, the infection, beyond reasonable doubt, haying been introduced
by the nurse. Happily the lady herself did not suffer, otherwise
the consequences might have been fatal. The nurse was dismissed,
and only escaped prosecution by decamping in the night from her
usual place of abode.
The importance of early recourse to medical aid in sickness was
well illustrated by several cases that came under my notice. A
death of a child was certified to have been caused by "suppurative
inflammation of cervical glands;" the medical man having been
called in to see the child in the last stage of an illness. Shortly
afterwards four children belonging to another family residing in the
same house, were removed to hospital, where two of them died of
scarlet fever. Had the nature of the illness in the first case, which
indubitably was scarlet fever, been recognized, as it probably would
have been had medical aid been sought at an earlier period, the subsequent
cases might never have occurred.
In another instance a child fell ill and died of an eruptive fever, but
the medical man was not called in till the eruption had faded. Believing
the case to be one of. measles he took no precautions against the
spread of disease, and he was considerably surprised on being informed
some time afterwards that cases of scarlet fever had occurred in
another family living in the same house.