154 YRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 
it is to be frankly admitted with satisfaction that, 
in this, Scotland is far ahead of some other parts 
of the British Isles. I doubt, however, if there is 
anything like a proper conception of the fearful 
way in which the public suffers when the duty in 
question is neglected by medical men. 
The public has to learn that an unskilful practi- 
tioner is simply a waster of human life, and that 
the public itself is but a bad judge of the waste of 
its own life which may take place. The popular 
prejudice against a custom thousands of years old 
in royal families is the cause of an enormous annual 
slaughter among all ranks, not the less real because 
it is impossible to compute. 
It may be further mentioned, that it is at least 
supposed that the government statistics, made at 
considerable expense, of the causes of mortality, 
are of some use; yet it is an obvious fact, of which 
I have had abundant experience, that the returns 
which medical men have, under compulsion, filled 
up, stating causes of death, are in large part utterly 
worthless, not from any wilful dereliction of duty 
on the part of members of the profession, but 
because information is asked which they are not 
in a position to give. The schedules sent out by 
the registrar for certification of cause of death 
ought to demand whether or not a post-mortem 
