[Report 1970] / Medical Officer of Health, Liskeard Borough.

  • Liskeard (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1970
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1970] / Medical Officer of Health, Liskeard Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/40
    TO: THE MAYOR. ALDERMEN and COUNCILLORS OF THE BOROUGH OF LISKEARD* Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen, During the year under review the population of No. 7 Health Area as estimated on 30th June, 1970 was 33*^00. This was an increase of 640 over the total for the corresponding date in 1969* By far the largest part of this growth occurred in the Borough of Saltash where the increase was 480. Smaller increases took place in St. Germans Rural District, Torpoint Urban District and the Borough of Liskeard. In the Liskeard Rural District and Looe Urban District there were small reductions in population. Live births fell from last years total of 810 to 769> giving a corrected birth rate of 17.7 per 1,000 of population, some 1.7 per 1,000 above the rate for England and Wales. The rates for still births and for deaths of infants under one year of age were marginally lower than the national rates. Illegitimate births totalled 45 and represented 5.9/ of all births, the lowest rate recorded since 1966. Complications of pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium did not cause any deaths of mothers during 1970. Deaths totalled 768, an increase of J>k over the figure for 1969. The corrected death rate of 12.0 per 1,000 of population was slightly above the national rate of 11.7. Heart disease which caused 40% of all deaths was again the most prevalent cause of death. Various types of cancer caused 20% of all deaths, and strokes were responsible for a further 14%. Of the defined forms of cancer causing death, those affecting the intestine were most numerous, closely followed by cancers of the windpipe and lung, and those involving the stomach. Since in the female the breast is a much more highly developed gland than it is in the male, cancers of this organ are for all practical purposes confined to the female half of the population. From this point of view the impact of breast cancer as a cause of death on the female section of the population is heavier than appears from a carsory glance at the figures of death attributed to this cause. In 1970 there were l6 deaths from this cause, all of them females. Looked at in terms of a rate per 1,000 of the vulnerable female population it advances breast cancer to the unenviable position of being almost as lethal for women as cancerof the lung is for men. The incidence of notifiable disease was quite low during 1970, when a total of 80 cases was notified. The principal factor contributing to this reduction is the fall in the prevalence of measles which has resulted from the development some few years ago of a new vaccine against this disease. Under the present schedule of protective immunisations this vaccine is now given to children during the second year of life and if parents are co-operative in having their children protected we can fairly confidently hope that measles will largely disappear in the same way that diphtheria, whooping- cough, poliomyelitis, and tuberculosis have done. German measles is normally the cause of a trivial illness, so mild in its effect that it is often not recognised as such. For these reasons it has not been included in the list of infectious diseases which, must be notified.