[Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Bournemouth County Borough.

  • Bournemouth (England). County Borough Council. nb2004301338.
Date:
1954
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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

    8/138 (page 4)
    The general death rate was Id..‘hi per 1,000 of the ])o])ulati( which when adjusted by the Registrar-!General’s coniparabil factor gave a corrected death rate of 9.83 ])er 1,000 of the ]X)piilati( Reference to the Table of the Causes of I )eath on ])age 16 shows tl almost exactly dO per cent, of the total deaths that occurred Bournemouth during 19d4 were in })eople over 7d years of age, a shows also the increasing mortality from degenerative Card vascular diseases and from Cancer. Perhaps the most tragic feati is the increasing mortality from Coronary Thrombosis and fn Cancer of the lung, whicli so often affect persons in the very prii of life. Attention has been drawn in Parliament and in the medi< and national press to the relationship between the smoking ha’ and the development of lung cancer, and Dr. W. H. Tatterse Consultant Che.st Physician to the Bournemouth Clinic, mal pertinent reference to this relationshi]) in his report. The Infant Mortality Rate, one of the most valuable guides the health of a community, fell for the first time in the history the Borough to below 20 })er 1,000 live births, and the final figure 19.20 per 1,000 compares with the average for England and Wa of 2d.d per 1,000 live births. This is a most gratifying result, a has only been achieved by the concerted efforts of the Materni and Child Welfare vService, the (General Practitioner vService and t Hospital Service. Of the total of 30 infants who died before tlr first birthday, no fewer than 20 died in the first four weeks of li 26 of them from prematurity, congenital abn(')rmalities or t hazards of birth. Deaths within the first four weeks of life, whi form the hard core of infant mortality today, are extraordinar difficult to prevent, for their causation is largely unknown. Duri the last few years there have been indications that the percenta of premature births has increased, and this ])roblem is receivi active consideraticui. In 1964 there were no maternal deaths, for the second vear succession. The incidence of notifiable infectiou.s di.sea.se remained relative low during the year. Cases of v^carlet I'ever and WfiK^ojfing Ccnii showed an increase over 1963. but the incidence ot Measles w. much lower. There were no cases of Iliphtheria. and no deatl