[Report 1950] / Medical Officer of Health, Cambridgeshire County Council.
- Cambridgeshire (England). County Council.
- Date:
- 1950
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1950] / Medical Officer of Health, Cambridgeshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.
10/30 (page 4)
![from congenital malformation in both the Borough and rural area. There were no deaths from diarrhoea in either area while as regards respiratory eauses of death there was a complete absenee of sueh deaths in the Borough and only two oceurred (from pneumonia) in the rural area. The other infant deaths (ineluding, presumably, those from prematurity) were elassified as due to “ other defined and ill-defined diseases,” a rather unsatisfactory group on which to base any con- clusions. a There were no maternal deaths from any cause in any part of the County, an iinprecedented state of affairs and one which facilitates comparison with the figures of former years, since here again there has been a re-classification and deaths are not allocated to sejrsis and other puer})eral conditions as formerly but as a total to “ Pregnancy, child- birth and abortion.” There was another considerable fall in the death rate from pulmonary tuberculosis. In the Borough of Cambridge the rate was slightly less than half what it was in the previous year and, though the fall in the rural area was not of the same magnitude, a record low rate was set uj) for the tw() areas separately and for the Administrative County as a whole. The death rate from non-pulmonary tuberculosis rose very slightly in the Borough of Cambridge, but there was a marked fall in the rural area and consequently the rate in the Administrative County was halved. When all forms of tuberculosis are considered together, the small rise in the non-pidmonary rate in the Borough, which was greatly overshadowed by the fall in the j^idmonary rate, was not sufficient to affect the fact that the rates in the AdministratiA C County and in the Borough and rural area individually all constituted new low records. ^Vhile it may be premature to express unqualified satisfaction with this state of affairs, since it is a matter of experience that a very low rate for this disease in one year is apt to be followed by a higher rate in the immediately succeeding year, it is a fact, as will be seen later in the report, that the low death rate in 1950 is also accompanied by a lower ascertainment rate and there may be ground for cautious optimism with regard to the problems presented by tuberculosis. There was a considerable decrease in the number of deaths from cancer and consequently in the death rate due to that disease in both the Borough and rural area. The explanation is difficult. It might be hoped that the early ascertainment of eases and their effective treatment was the cause, but it seems strange that there should be so sudden a reversal of a previous trend in any one year. There were 18 deaths in individuals under 45 years of age, the same figure as that of the ])revious year and 126 in individuals below the age of 65 as against 86 in the previous year. The figures showing the incidence of the principal infectious diseases in the County during the year (civilians only), with those of the two ])revious years for comparison, are set out below :—](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2908958x_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
