[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green Borough].

  • Bethnal Green (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1929]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green Borough]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/124 (page 4)
    4 Public Health Department, Town Hall, Bethnal Gre.en, E.2. 1 st May, 1929. To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green. Ladies and Gentlemen, It is customary, in endeavouring to assess the health of a District, to take into account certain statistics, amongst others, the birth and death rates. The birth rate for 1928, the lowest ever recorded in the Borough, was 19.0 per 1,000 of the population, contrasted with 19.9 in 1927—a further example of the steady fall which we have experienced now for some years past. The general death rate at all ages and from all causes was 11.7 which compares with the figure 11.3 per 1,000 of the population in 1927. Of the special death rates, the infant mortality figure, calculated as the number of children dying under 1 year per 1,000 births, is frequently regarded as a sensitive index of the health of a District. Too much importance cannot be attached to yearly fluctuations in this figure, for, where com paratively small numbers form the basis of calculation, the possible margin of error is proportionally large. It is, however, worth noting that there has been an increase of 30 per cent. in the number of infant deaths over the figures, for 1927. This suggests the necessity for ever being on the outlook for any factors inimical to child life. While we thus have from the birth and death returns a good deal of information of the two extremes of life, we have very little definite knowledge of the amount or the nature of the diseases which periodically incapacitate so many of the population, diseases which, while not necessarily leading to a fatal termination, are responsible for grievous suffering to the individual and result in great loss to the national prosperity. In the absence of any accurate information of the qualitative nature of these incapacitating diseases, we have to rely upon the incidence of certain notifiable infectious diseases as a criterion. During 1928, the commoner infectious diseases compared favour ably, both in incidence and type, with those in past years, while the decrease in the number and the severity of the cases of diphtheria was very satisfactory.