[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell,

  • Camberwell (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell,. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CAM 41 Report of the Medical Officer of Health. Public Health Department, Town Hall, Camberwell, S.E.5. 1st July, 1935. To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell. Mr. Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors, I have the honour to submit my Annual Report on the health and sanitary circumstances of the Borough. This report has been prepared in accordance with Ministry of Health Circular 1,417, which indicates the lines to be followed with regard to the contents and arrangement of the Annual Report of Medical Officers of Health for 1934. The Public Health Department which was accommodated at 35, Brunswick Square, Camberwell, for the past twelve years is now established in the new Town Hall, an arrangement which is satisfactory from every point of view. The year 1934 will be remembered as the year during which the Council, in collaboration with the London County Council, started a campaign of slum clearance in Camberwell, and this campaign is still being vigorously pursued. The birth rate still further declined during 1934, the rate per 1,000 of the estimated resident population being 13.22, which is the lowest ever recorded in Camberwell. The comparative figure for 1933 was 13.32. The death rate remained practically unchanged, viz., 12.31 as compared with 12.33 in the previous year. There was also a slight fall in the tuberculosis death rate from 1.OO to 0.97 per thousand estimated resident population. It is particularly gratifying to record, that the maternal death rate fell to the extremely low figure of 2.46 per thousand total live and still-births. On the other hand the infantile mortality rate rose from 49 to 67 per thousand births, and to some extent is accounted for by the increase in the number of deaths from pneumonia (all forms). Except for the biennial measles epidemic which started towards the end of 1933 and continued during the early months of 1934, there was no excessive occurrence of infectious disease during any period of the year.