§ MR. CAUSTON (Southwark, W.)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the report in the Daily News of 26th June of an inquest held at the Coroner's Court, High Street, Borough, on the body of a child named James Abraham Smith, when evidence was given to the effect that the child had been attended and prescribed for by an unqualified medical practitioner; that a qualified practitioner who had been called in and had declined to give a certificate, deposed to making a post mortem examination, which showed that death was due to narcotic poisoning; that a certificate was afterwards signed by another doctor who had never seen the child, but stated the cause of death to be dentition and convulsions; and, whether the Registrar General proposes to take any action in the matter?
§ * MR. RITCHIEI have made inquiry of the Registrar General and am informed that the death of a child named Smith was registered on the certificate of Mr. Carr, a duly registered medical practitioner, who stated on his certificate that he had attended the child during its last illness, and that the cause of death was, to the best of his knowledge, "Dentition. Convulsions." From information received by the local registrar from other sources, he thought that the case was of a suspicious character, and sent information to the coroner. An inquest was held and a verdict found that the cause of death was narcotic poisoning, but whether caused by an overdose of prescription given by an unqualified practitioner there was not sufficient evidence to show. The coroner requested the registrar to inform the Registrar General that Mr. Carr had certified that he had attended the child, although he had in fact never seen it, the child having been attended by Mr. Carr's unqualified assistant. The Registrar General has asked to be furnished with a copy of the depositions. 1471 He has not yet received them, and he has therefore at present no evidence on which to take action.