View report page

1907]
110
In the early part of the year the Medical Officer of Health drew the
attention of the Public Health Committee to the objectionable practice which
obtains among undertakers of keeping on their premises coffins containing
dead bodies, which, for sanitary or other reasons have been removed from
residences of the deceased before the day of burial, and consequently, the
Town Clerk was directed to communicate with all the undertakers in the
borough to point out that such a practice was fraught with danger to the
health of the workmen employed in these premises as well as of the public.
He was also instructed to say that with a view to providing suitable
accommodation for this purpose in Islington, arrangements had been made
for the Mortuary in Holloway Road to be placed at the disposal of undertakers
who found it necessary to take charge of dead bodies prior to the
day of burial, and to add that the Public Health Committee trusted that their
efforts in this direction would result in the abandonment by undertakers of
the present practice.
Accordingly, on the 7th March a circular was addressed to the above
effect to every undertaker in the Borough.
It is with regret that it is to be reported that none of them has seen nt
to take advantage of this offer. No doubt, nothing will be done until legislation
gives power to the sanitary authority to prevent bodies being kept on
undertakers' premises while awaiting burial and elsewhere than in a Mortuary.