[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Maidstone U.D.C. / Borough.

  • Maidstone (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Maidstone U.D.C. / Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/60 (page 29)
    One of the features of 1959 has been the increased interest being taken in the high accident rate, and in this connection, a Home Safety Committee has been set up in Maidstone to study this problem. In the elderly age group one of the most common causes of death by accident is due to a fall, and it is felt that a considerable amount of this wastage of life could be cut out by more careful design in household amenities provided for elderly people. Another cause of death through accident is burning, in the young age groups, and it is very often occasioned by material being caught up in unguarded fires. The new clothing fabric now on the market will greatly help in this connection, and would be even more attractive if the housewife did hot have to take into account the considerable difference in price between that and traditional material* INFECTIOUS DISEASES. In 1909 over 5 per cent of all deaths were due to infectious diseases, while in 1959 only 0.29 per cent was accounted for by this category. This reduction has come about through the vast improvement in the environmental health of the community, the biological evolution of the organisms, the impressive increase in vaccination and immunisation, and the specific drugs used in infectious diseases. One is apt to forget in this connection that the infectious diseases as killers have not been eradicated, but merely suppressed, and a great deal of that suppression must be due to the immunity conferred by artificial means on the community. Unless this immunity is maintained the infectious diseases may well again become one of the major causes of disability and death. Even in the report under review meningococcal infection and one other cause in a similar group were responsible for two deaths. If any relaxation were permitted on the general environmental standards quoted above, this figure could very easily be exceeded with tragic results* TUBERCULOSIS,, The tuberculosis death rate in 1959 is only a tenth of what it was 50 years ago* Today tuberculosis, though still a very serious disease, is generally diagnosed at an early stage, and full facilities are available for the treatment of such cases. The elderly still constitute dangerous foci of infection from the point of view of the chronic case; until all such foci of infection have at least been located, and are under surveillance, it is too much to say that tuberculosis is on the way out. All that we can say at the moment is that the disease is being vigorously pursued and the weapons at our disposal are infinitely superior to what they were even ten years ago