On the office and duties of coroner : with suggestions for parliamentary inquiry, proposed legislation, and reform of the office / by William Hardwicke.

  • William Hardwicke
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the office and duties of coroner : with suggestions for parliamentary inquiry, proposed legislation, and reform of the office / by William Hardwicke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    41/74 (page 5)
    Even six years ago (1874) the Registration Acts, 37 & 38 Vic., c. 88, were but imperfectly amended. Section 20 requests that duly qualified and registered medical practitioners shall sign and give information (to the best of their knowledge and belief) of the cause of death. There is a vague legal compulsion (Sec. 39) for them to do this only in the cases of deaths of persons whom they have medically attended. There is also a penalty of 40s. against the person required by the Act to register the information of the death, if he or she fail to deliver a medical certificate and the name of the certifying registered practitioner. But, if a person dies without medical attendance, as remarked by a correspondent in the Times, “ unless some scandal has arisen to excite suspicion, no skilled evidence is required for the purpose of registration. In my Report refuting charges made by ]\Tiddlesex magistrates of holding unnecessary inquests, the follow- ing remarks occur:— “ Now, more than over, are safeguards for life needful. The artful use and abuse of Chloral, of Anodynes, Antesthetics, and subtle poisons, and the many forms of deaths promoted by Alcoholic poisoning, as well as those from violence, accident, and neglect, demand a closer investigation than ever. Considering also the great increase of life assurance in children at tender ages, it is far from politic to discourage the local Eegistrars and Medical Practitioners from sending information of deaths under circumstances of obscurity, which they so frequently meet with ; and where, under doubtful conditions, they onght not to bo expected to certify the cause of death, and so procure registration and burial.”