[Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council.

  • Staffordshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1954
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/100 (page 5)
    Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health PRELIMINARY NOTE The year 1954 did not provide any spectacular event as regards the health of the County, the most satisfactory feature, in fact, being the absence of deaths from diphtheria and the reduction of the number of cases of that disease as compared with the previous year. However, it was a period of quiet progress as demonstrated by most of the statistics. It will be noted in the early pages of the report that the birth-rate shows a continuation of the fall which has been seen, except for the “ War Bulge,” since the turn of the century, the figure of 15-4 being the lowest so far recorded. The death-rate seems to have reached a plateau and the main causes of death are unaltered. It is a comment on the ways of the day that motor accidents have appeared as a regular item in the list of causes of death and form a substantial proportion of the causes after the “ Big Three.” The table on Page 14 v/hich shows the proportion of deaths occurring under 45 years of age again reveals a reduction and indicates that the ailments which may be called, from the body's point of view, ” accidents,” are fairly well under control, whereas the ” worn out ” types of illnesses just referred to as the ” Big Three,” i.e., heart disease, cancer and diseases of the blood vessels are not so amenable to present methods of prevention and treatment. One supposes that there must come a time when each person's organs are too worn out to continue, but the age at which this occurs is clearly very variable. Why do some people continue with a vigorous and active life into the eighties while the majority die earlier, possibly after a long period of invalidism ? This difficult and important question is a matter for research which is being undertaken in a general way in a few centres in England, though it appears that the biochemical investigations are not sufficiently co-ordinated with them. Last year, observations were made on the declarations of ‘‘ Specified Areas ” for milk sales and further parts of the County were included during the year under consideration, so that 73 per cent of the County population now live in these areas. This is very satisfactory progress and will eventually lead, one hopes, to the state when no non-designated milk is consumed. When this occurs it willjbe a big step forward, but there will still remain much careful routine work to ensure the main¬ tenance of standards and improve the present condition of designated milks. During the year the ” Tuberculin Tested ” milk samples taken did not acquit themselves entirely satisfactorily, only 90 per cent of ' them having passed the Methylene Blue Test for cleanliness as compared with 83 per cent of the non-designated milk ; tubercle bacilli were found in 0-3 per cent as compared with 2-1 per cent in the non-designated. From tins latter point it is satisfactory to note that co-operation between