[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southall-Norwood].

  • Southall-Norwood (London, England). Urban District Council.
Date:
[1926?]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southall-Norwood]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/62 (page 3)
    3 To the Chairman of the Southall-Norwood Urban District Council. Sir, I have pleasure in presenting to you my Annual Report on the Health of the District for 1925. The gross death-rate for the year is only 8.2, which is a fall of practically one per 1,000 compared with last year. I often wonder about our low death-rate which, for the past five years, has ranged between about 7.9 to 9 per 1,000 of the Population. In a working-class population such as ours, where there is a great deal of overcrowding, this low rate is a puzzle which I have not yet been able to solve to my satisfaction, but I think the main contributing factors are as follows. In the first place, we have a young population ; but a young population would not continue to show a low death rate for long, if the sanitary circumstances of the homes and of the district as a whole were unsatisfactory. Taking the homes, I should say that 99 per cent. are in a cleanly and sanitary state. Further, the water supply of the district is excellent, while the methods of dealing with sewage, refuse and scavenging are exceedingly good. We have unusually good provision for cases of infectious disease, and the work done in the prevention of infectious illness is very satisfactory. Again, our population is a sober one; there may be plenty of drinking, but it has been said by the local Bench that the charges of drunkeness are the lowest from Southall than from any other district. Our Population, therefore, live under unusually good circum stances. It is a young one and sober, and housed under the best conditions at present available, and it is to these factors