[Report 1969] / Medical Officer of Health, Wakefield R.D.C.

  • Wakefield (England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1969
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1969] / Medical Officer of Health, Wakefield R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/68 (page 10)
    Society of Health ‘ This curse has been placed so firmly upon us because of the length of time before it operates—we now know that cigarette smoking has a direct connection not only witty lung cancer but also with chronic bronchitis and coronary thrombosis ”. I think it would be generally accepted that there are few people who would tolerate working in conditions simi¬ lar to these which they willingly subject the delicate inner lin ing of the lung every time they smoke a cigarette, without considering and indeed undertaking some form of industrial action. Because the threat from cigarette smoking seems re¬ mote the social habit is universal and three fifths of our men and. an increasing proportion: of our women, still smoke a pro¬ ven lethal object. It is a fantastic situation that we promote by our own, voluntary actions by far the largest single avoid¬ able cause of deaths and disability in Britain today, particularly as there is no other agent in our environment which approaches thg cigarette in menace to life and health. It will be seen from the tables in the Midwifery Section of this report that the percentage of domiciliary confinements in the Rural District has fallen and in the past five years the percentages are as follows:—< 1965—53.9%; 1966—55%; 1967 —58%; 1968—42%; 1969—40%. However, at the same time the number of early discharges from hospital before the tenth day have risen quite considerably and for the whole of the Division the numbers are:— 1965—318; 1966—437; 1967— 538; 1968—694; 1969—686. Further the emphasis during this period has been in earlier and earlier discharge such that though there is little difference between the figures for 1968 and 1969, in fact 329 mothers were discharged in 1969 at 48 hours as compared with 233 in 1968. It will be seen therefore that though the work of the midwife has been decreasing on the one hand, on the other hand — the nursing of mothers and