Mr. A. Braxton Hicks, Barrister-at-Law, and Coroner for London and Surrey, states that—
“The giving of certificates of death, and the registration of deaths, is regulated by 37 and 38 Vict. c. 88, called the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, its object being to provide a proper and accurate registration of births and deaths, with the causes of the latter.
“In case of the death of any person who has been attended during his last illness by a registered medical practitioner, that practitioner shall sign and give to some person, required by this Act to give information concerning the death, a certificate stating, to the best of his knowledge and belief, the cause of death.
“No certificate given by an unregistered medical man can be registered, and any person who covers an unregistered medical man by giving a certificate, or lending his name to the giving of a certificate by an unregistered medical man, is guilty of unprofessional conduct, as defined by the Medical Council.”—Hints to Medical Men concerning the granting of Certificates of Death.
A DOCTOR FOR THE DEAD.
Dr. J. Brindley James, in a communication to the Medical Times, May 23, 1896, pp. 355-356, calls attention to the insufficient safeguards against premature burial under the present system of death-certification, and observes—“The dread possibility of premature interment ever hangs like a gloomy sword of Damocles over all our heads, and fearful indeed is the authentic record of persons buried alive, who have recovered consciousness; too late, alas! to be rescued from their frightful dungeon. How often does our overworked—we do not say careless—practitioner sign the death-certificate of a patient whose death-bed he did not attend—whose corpse he has not visited? And even assuming him to have done so, and conscientiously too, in how many of the fearful cases above alluded to have not these formalities proved insufficient, clearly suggesting the advisability of a specialist, experienced in post-mortem inspection, solely sanctioning interment in all cases.” And Dr. Frederick Graves, writing in the same journal of July 18, 1896, says:—
“I have recently heard of a case which illustrates the utility of a medical examination before burial. A soldier in the German army, during the forced march on Paris, became unconscious, with five others, from sunstroke, and the six were put aside for burial by their comrades, when the timely examination of the army surgeon prevented premature burial of the person referred to, who is alive and well at the present time.”
The Daily Chronicle, London, September 16, 1895, in a leading article on the danger of premature burial, says:—“The truth is, the whole system of certifying for burial needs to be reconsidered and reformed, and that for other reasons than the danger of entombment before life is extinct. We do not want a coroner’s inquest, with its jury, for every death; but the doctors should be compelled, under severe penalties, to discover the certain sign of death before they authorise the burial, and to know the cause of death in every case.STRINGENT LEGISLATION SUGGESTED. We trust now too much to individuals in a generally trustworthy profession, who may not reach the high general standard of their class, or may grow listless through the indifference wrought by use and wont, or who think they can detect the rigor mortis at a glance, never having seen the severest form of catalepsy. There would be no difficulty in getting Parliament to pass a more stringent regulation for death-certificates without much discussion, and there is no reason why Sir Matthew White Ridley should not turn his attention to the matter, and, with such medical advice as the Health Department of the Local Government Board will be pleased to lend him, propose a necessary little bill to the House of Commons next February.”
The following letter by a German resident in England appeared in the Times of September 20, 1895:—