[Report 1936] / Medical Officer of Health, Horwich U.D.C.

  • Horwich (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1936] / Medical Officer of Health, Horwich U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/37 (page 4)
    (d). A summary of important Special Reports, if any, made during the year. The Comparability Factor, or, as it is now styled, the Areal Comparability Factor (A.C.F.) has been explained in previous reports. The factor for Horwich is 1*08 which being above unity means that our age and sex constitution is slightly favourable to a low mortality. During the coming year your attention will be drawn from time to time to the fundamental importance of the function of nutrition. In this connection I should like to refer members to two reports which have been recently published. The first is the Preliminary Report of the Advisory Committee on Nutrition, on the facts quantitative and qualitative in relation to the diet of the people. The second is the Report of the Medical Research Council for the year 1935-36. It is impossible in an annual report to deal with the findings, but briefly the following are some of the main recommendations:- Improvements in health and physique can be obtained by consumption of adequate amounts of the “protective foods,” milk, butter, cheese, gre^n vegetables, fruit, eggs, and seafish, especially herring and mackerel. The average daily consumption of milk per head should be about two pints for expectant and nursing mothers, from one to two pints for children, and not less than half a pint for the rest of the population. From the health standpoint there is no other single measure which could do more to improve the health, development and resistance to disease of the rising generation, than a largely increased consumption of safe milk, especially by mothers, children and adolescents. We hope that in dealing with the problem of milk now and in the future, the primary objective of the State will be to ensure that a supply of safe milk to the amount we have recommended above is brought within the pur- chasing power of the poorest. We deplore the fact that while the volume of milk offered for sale is growing and there is a substan- tial surplus, which is beyond the capacity of the liquid milk market to absorb, there should at the same time be a severe deficiency of milk in the diet of large sections of the population. The report of the Research Council stresses the importance of a correct diet in the proper formation of the teeth and the prevention of their early decay.