§ MR. COOPER (Southwark, Bermondsey)To ask the Secretary of State for 656 the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to an inquest held on a boy named Alfred Lebathe, aged twelve years, who died at the Metropolitan Hospital during the administration of an anæsthetic and before an operation was commenced; and whether he has had any answer to his communication with the British Medical Council as to the advisability of in future requiring that the administration of anæsthetics should form a part of the curriculum of a medical student.
§ MR. COOPERTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the repeated statements of the coroner for the City of London that only a small proportion of deaths occurring under anæsthesia in private practice come to the notice of the registrar or coroner; whether the annual Return of the Registrar-General shows that an average of three deaths while under the influence of an anæsthetic occur in the hospitals of England and Wales each week; and whether he will consider the advisability of appointing either a Commission or making a grant to the Royal Society and asking that Society to appoint a committee to inquire into all the facts of deaths under anæsthesia, and to advise generally as to the conditions to be observed and regulations to be carried out when an anæsthetic is administered.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I will answer these two Questions together. My attention has been drawn to several statements on this subject, including that of the coroner for the City of London, to the figures in the Registrar General's Report, and to many cases of inquests on persons who have died under aæesthetics. The Lord President of the Council, through whom I communicated with the General Medical Council, informs me that he understands a reply may be expected in a very few days from that body, which is now in session. As I have stated before, the question of holding a formal inquiry must be postponed, at any rate, till I know what action the medical authorities are prepared to take.