Pg. 354

Admin_LH

November 2, 2020

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 354

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 CHOLERA.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 statute, they cannot claim any remuneration for their trouble. If the Medical men are employed by the Guardians, or by any other body, to make the examination, and to give the certificate, they will be entitled to a reasonable compensation. The Commissioners cannot state what should be the amount of such compensations. The Commissioners cannot require the Medical Officer of the Union to give any such certificate by reason of any duty imposed upon such officer.”

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Page 265.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 ” Proceedings for Removal of Nuisances.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 “April 3, 1848.

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 “Clerk of Luton Union: The Guardians have taken proceedings, under the statute 9 and 10 Vic., cap. xcvi., against several owners of premises, for the removal of nuisances, which were certified to them, at the request of Guardians, by two of their Medical Officers, one of whom has sent in a bill, amounting to 3l. 3s., for his fees for certificates and attendances, before justices. In some of the cases, the parties have removed the nuisances without an order of justices; and, in others, orders have been issued. Inquired whether the charges of the Medical men for certificates and attendances upon the justices are recoverable under sections 2 and 13 of the said Act; whether, in those cases in which the parties have been summoned, but have removed the nuisance without an order, the justices can order payment of the expenses incurred; and, if not, whether the Guardians can charge such expenses, including the Medical men’s fees, in the accounts of the respective parishes.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 “ Answer: The Board, having consulted counsel in the matter, are advised that the public authorities alluded to in the 1st section of the 9th and 10th Vic., cap. xcvi., have power to originate proceedings under that section; and that where Medical Practitioners are employed by them, to inquire into and certify as to a nuisance, such Medical Practitioners may lawfully claim remuneration for their certificate from the authorities so employing them; though, if they send such certificate of their own accord, or at the instances of any private individuals, they have no such legal claim. The Board are further advised that such Medical Practitioners could not claim remuneration for their attendance before the justices without a special contract, (see Payne v. the Guardians of the Strand Union, 82 B., Rep. 326); but that, under the 13th section of the Act, they might be paid such reasonable remuneration as might be made the subject of a proper agreement. With regard to the fund, or party chargeable with the expenses in question, the advice given to the Board is to the effect that the party complained against is not liable to re-imburse the expenses of the preliminary inquiry, the costs recoverable from him under the second section of the Act being limited to those incurred in obtaining and executing the order, i. e., necessarily incurred in the proceedings pointed out in the first section which follows the receipt of the certificate; but that the costs incurred by the public authorities in causing inquiries to be made and premises examined, or in taking proceedings under the Act, may (provided they are reasonable and proper for effecting the general objects of the Act) be defrayed out of the Poor-rates under the 13th section, in the several cases where no application is made to the justices, or where no order is obtained, and the justices, nevertheless, in the exercise of their discretion, decline to make an order for costs under the second section.”

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 PROTRACTED GESTATION (?)

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 In an affiliation case, at Cheltenham, the solicitor for the plaintiff said, it was agreed that the last time the defendant had intercourse with the young woman was on the night of the 5th of July, 1853, because he left her on the following morning to proceed to his situation at Northleach. From that period up to the birth of the child, on the 21st of May in the present year, would be exactly 45 weeks and four days, or 319 days altogether. It was contended on the other side, that as 40 weeks, or 280 days, was the natural period of gestation, the defendant could not by any possibility be the father of the child.

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 The Medical witnesses were then called.

¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 Dr. W. P. Brookes: I am a Physician and Surgeon, practising in Cheltenham for the last fifteen years. I have heard your statement of the dates, showing that the period of gestation in this case must have been as long as 319 days. I know there are cases on record of equal length. Dr. Murphy, the chief Physician of University College Hospital, reports a case where the period was 324 days. I have met with no such case within my own experience. I have known women to be three or four weeks

¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 out in fixing the period of confinement; but I have never noted a case of unusually protracted gestation.

¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 By Mr. Pruen, for defendant: I do not of my own knowledge name any case beyond the usual period of 280 days, though I have had such cases, but could not now name one. It is by nd means general to find the period extended, and such a case as this I should call a very rare case. There are several cases reported in Taylor’s work which go to equal lengths, even allowing for the usual period after menstruation has ceased. I believe in these cases as I would in any other Medical facts. Dr. Murphy, in his cases, dates the commencement of the period of gestation 28 days after menstruation has ceased.

¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 By Mr. Chesshyre, for plaintiff: I should not say this case is by any means impossible, when I have such high authority to go upon.

¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 Mr. A. W. Gabb : I am a surgeon, in practice in Cheltenham. I have heard the dates given in tins case, and I believe it very possible that defendant may be the father of the child. In my own practice I have known the period of gestation extend much beyond the usual time, which is nine months. I have known a case where the period has been 310 days, or thirty days beyond the natural and usual time.

¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 By Mr. Pruen: I have allowed, in the case I have named, the usual period after menstruation has ceased. Of 310 days I am certain, and I believe it to have been a few days more; I am certain conception must have taken place ten clear months before parturition. The labour was an ordinary one of twelve hours’ duration. The same circumstance has occurred twice to the same lady within my own knowledge, and I thought the case sufficiently remarkable to induce me to mention it to my professional brethren. I do believe 319 days quite possible and probable as the period of gestation, because there are cases on record of even longer periods. There are cases reported of eleven, and I have read of one case of twelve months’ duration. Taylor, in his work, gives a case of 325 days, and in that case the date of conception is taken after the usual period of menstruation. I cannot go of my own knowledge on any case beyond 310 days.

¶ 18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 By Mr. Chesshyre: There are cases of protracted parturition, where the labour has extended over a week.

¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 Mr. Charles Fowler: I am a Surgeon, in extensive midwifery practice for many years in Cheltenham. I have never known a case in which the period Of gestation has extended Over 300 days; never, in fact, beyond the usual period of 280 days, so far as dates could be ascertained. This is the result of my own practice; but of course other gentlemen have met with different results.

¶ 20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 Mr. Chesshyre : I have known women to be a fortnight and a month out in their calculation as to the time of their confinement ; but I have no distinct recollection of any case of very protracted gestation. I have read of such cases, and I believe it has extended over the natural period as much as five weeks and four days; but these are not frequent or very probable cases.

¶ 21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0 Mr. Pruen: When you say you think it possible, I suppose you mean you would not limit nature ?

¶ 22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 Mr. Fowler: I do mean that.

¶ 23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 Mr. Pruen: Have you consulted any authority on the subject ?

¶ 24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0 Mr. Fowler: Yes, I have consulted a work by Dr. Blundell, an eminent midwifery authority, but he carries no case beyond forty weeks and one day.

¶ 25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0 Mr. Walter Jessop: I am a Surgeon, in practice in this town. While in the London Hospitals I devoted my attention to these cases, and I never knew of one extending to 319 days. There is no case reported of gestation extending over such a period from a single coitus.

¶ 26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 0 The magistrates announced their determination to dismiss the case.

¶ 27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0 CHOLERA.

¶ 28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 0 METROPOLIS.

¶ 29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 The last return of the Registrar-General supplies evidence of the result of wholesale newspaper advertising of quasi-remedies for the epidemic, which is still committing its ravages. It is questionable whether we shall ever know, to the full extent, the fatality which has resulted from the domestic practice of the various specifics which have been vaunted before the public by the daily journals. The Spectator goes so far as to ask—“Does its consequence not amount to something like manslaughter ? If in this formal inquiry [referring to the investigation of the Medical Council of the Board of Health on the Castor-oil Treat-