Genealogy Forum UK

Does anybody know whether a signed document had to be presented when registering a death, if it was certified by a doctor?

The reason I ask is that one of my ancestors died of "Hip Joint Disease", which seems a bit strange! Hip problems don't usually cause death by themselves, and I would expect the doctor to have mentioned if the hip problems were part of another illness such as TB.
Other death certificates I have use latin terms, which seems difficult for the ordinary (and in some cases, illiterate) working class person of the 19th Century to remember and repeat correctly.

Depends when it was probably.

"One thing to be taken with a pinch of salt is the cause of death. All too often it's a euphemism for something else, and as you go back to Victorian times, diagnoses become notoriously inaccurate. Since 1874 a doctor's certificate has been a necessity for the issuance of a death certificate, and often accompanies it. Indeed, until that date, it wasn't even necessary to put a cause of death on the certificate! That said, between 1858 and 1874, a certificate should state whether the death had been certified or not by a doctor."

http://www.exploregenealogy.co.uk/death ... cords.html

And Happy May Day!

As Gardener says, what year?
As now, well it was when I was working, somtimes cause of death isnt really what they sufferd from. The death was caused by ...
And also it may not have been known.
Is that all it says and no Dr?
Jo

grangers14 wrote:As Gardener says, what year?
As now, well it was when I was working, somtimes cause of death isnt really what they sufferd from. The death was caused by ...
And also it may not have been known.
Is that all it says and no Dr?
Jo

The death was in 1896, certified by doctor, with his name and LRCP which I'm assuming is the London Royal College of Physicians or something similar. And again that's a bit of info I wouldn't expect a working class person to necessarily remember.
Strangely the person in question had a niece named after her, about fifteen years after her death - she had hip problems caused by TB! Of course some of the family said that it was because she was named after her dead aunt!

But wouldnt it be from the medical certificate of death?
J

[quote="grangers14"]But wouldnt it be from the medical certificate of death?
J [/quote

Sure it would. Once the requirement for a doctor's certificate came in I would imagine that the registrar just copied it out - assuming they could read what it said!

Hip joint disease is listed here:
http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/english/englishc.htm

Coxalgia = Hip joint disease.

Have to agree that it is an odd thing to put down as cause of death!

Thanks for that web site. On the site it also says Hip Joint Disease is TB of the hip, I'm suprised the death cert doesn't mention TB or consumption at all though.
It does make it more interesting that both Aunt and Niece with the same name suffered from TB of the hip! Strange that it should affect the same joint on both - I would like to know if it was the same side!!

Been doing a bit of digging.
With TB of the hip you can develop waht's called a cold abcess. It's cold due to the lack of heat normally associated with abcesses. They can be huge, sometimes up to a couple of pints of puss, and they don't heal themselves. Usually they grow slowly, and eventually Work their way out to the skin. At this point other bacteria can enter the body and cause septacaemia, or blood poisoning.

Now I can understand why you can die of this type of TB!!
Treatment at the time wouldn't have been good, the TB bacteria wasn't even identified at the time, and use of antibiotics wouldn't be around form 40+ years.

What a dreadful thing to have

gardener wrote:What a dreadful thing to have

Certainly doesn't sound like a nice way to go, and the poor lady had a two year old daughter who was adopted by an aunt. Can't imagine what the family thought when my great aunt contracted the same type of TB.