Interpreting death certificate

[AngelaS]

I have obtained some death certificates from the 1880s and 1890s via the Scotlandspeople site.  Some have been certified by a doctor and others say dispensary patient underneath the cause of death.
I am assuming they were not in a financial position to call a doctor.

Can anyone provide any info about these dispensaries or direct me to a relavant book or website.

Thanks
Angela

[Boongie Pam]

AngelaS,

A very warm welcome to Rootschat.

I'm sorry your first reply was to tell you to go elsewhere - we love to help on RC.

I believe it means out-patient in our current usage.  It would depend where they were living as to were they were treated.  Have you checked out NHS info here (thats if it is the right area) you can look up teh doctor's name and maybe find were medical records are kept.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,133275.0.html

Best of luck,
Pam
 

[RJ_Paton]

The place of death may also give some clues ... especially if it was not the normal place of residence.
For some time prior to your time period it was possible to register a death without any medical death certificate

According to the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Acts of 1854 and 1860, there were three ways in which deaths could be registered: on the production of a certificate by a doctor who had attended the deceased, upon the information from a procurator-fiscal or a "qualified informant". In the last case, a relative or friend merely informed the registrar of the death and its probable cause. These were classed as uncertified deaths. It was thought that these allowed too much scope for crime and fraud and should, therefore, be eliminated. For example, Dr. Glaister of Glasgow said that he "saw no difficulty for anybody to perpetrate a crime, get the whole matter certified and registered and the body buried without anybody detecting it" (para. 3426).

from http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/haynin/haynin0805.htm

However by the 1880's this practice was no longer accepted but various Friendly Societies,Institutions and other establishments had set up schemes wherby even the poorest could obtain the services of a Doctor by paying only a small amount ... many of these would have been described as "Dispensary Patients"

[RJ_Paton]

This site Victorian London describes the death of a young girl described as a "Dispensary Patient" from the hospital which appears to confirm the idea that they were what we would today (in the UK anyway) refer to as "Out Patients"