I was reading an article in The Times about a surgeon (Mr William John Coryn) who was fined for issuing a false certificate stating he had delivered a still born child when in fact the baby was born alive but died afterwards. He said he occasionally did this to save poorer parents the cost of an "ordinary burial". In this case the child had lived for 34 hours, but in his mind he considered it a still birth because the child couldn't live as it was premature.
Anyway, the point I was making is that I hadn't realised that still births got ANY recognition (something brought in by the Births and Deaths Reg Act 1874 apparently). So if a woman was delivered of a still born child she was supposed to take a medical cert to the register office to explain why she was not registering a birth following her pregnancy and confinement. I wonder what happened to those certs?
Anyway, the point I was making is that I hadn't realised that still births got ANY recognition (something brought in by the Births and Deaths Reg Act 1874 apparently). So if a woman was delivered of a still born child she was supposed to take a medical cert to the register office to explain why she was not registering a birth following her pregnancy and confinement. I wonder what happened to those certs?
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