[Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Brighton County Borough.

  • Brighton (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Brighton County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    - UTE f»v''-:oin»iNE 1 Health Department, Royal York Buildings, Brighton, June, 1950. To the Chairman and Members of the Health Committee. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to present my Annual Report for the year ended December 31st, 1949, in accordance with my statutory duties as Medical Officer of Health. The year saw a settling down of many of the problems arising from the inception of the National Health Service Act, and so far as the new duties which devolved on the local Health Authority are concerned, I am glad to report that they have worked smoothly and I think efficiently. Vital Statistics The mid-1949 civilian population, as estimated by the Registrar General, was 155,050, a slight increase on the 1948 estimate. The following figures give the rates per 1,000 of population, and for comparison (and throughout the report) the corresponding figures for 1948 are given in brackets : Birth rate 14-47 (16-27) : Crude Death Rate 14-65 (12-99), Adjusted Death Rate 11-87 : Maternal Mortality Rate 1-7 (1-2) : Infant Mortality Rate 37 (31), the number of infant deaths being 82 (79). The number of live births was 2,243 (2,512), of which 185 (219) were illegitimate. Infectious Diseases Except for the cases of poliomyelitis, the incidence of the notifiable diseases was low. There were 10 (29) notifications of diphtheria and again there were no deaths from this disease. There were also no deaths from scarlet fever, measles, or whooping cough. Vaccination The number of children vaccinated as a protection against smallpox shows a marked decline. Further reference to this is made in the Report. Tuberculosis The returns for 1949 show a decided fall from those of the previous year, the number of new cases for all forms of tuberculosis being 170 (208) ; the fall was in the pulmonary type, 137 cases as against 174. Venereal Diseases The fall in the number of new cases, noted last year, continued, the total number being 119 (179) of which 82 were men and 37 women. The number attending the clinic for conditions other than V.D. also showed a decline—241 (341).