[Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Skelton & Brotton U.D.C.

  • Skelton and Brotton (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Skelton & Brotton U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/32 (page 1)
    TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SKELTON & BROTTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg to submit my Annual Report for the year 1949, the contents and arrangement of which are in accordance with the Ministry of Health Circular 2/50. The two primary purposes of the Annual Report are to provide the Ministry of Health with certain information required by the Minister and to give the Local Authority a review of the work done in the year. The information supplied is in the form of statistics interspersed with comments and at times recommendations. Unless a person happens to be statistically minded statistics are at best a dull subject and the general reader is apt to skim the contents. A third purpose of the Annual Health Report should be to present the health activities of the Local Authority in such a way that the public becomes interested in the prevention of disease and the maintenance of personal health. Medical science has progressed to the stage where it can offer to the public valuable advice on certain matters of personal health. For instance, the early treatment of cancer of the breast and of the womb is now most successful, so a woman should know why and when to consult her doctor ; immunization against diphtheria reduces the likelihood of catching diphtheria and practically abolishes the risk of dying of it; the vitamin preparations are necessary additions to the food of infants and toddlers so that they may grow up healthy children. I quote these three proved procedures as examples of v/hat medical science can tell the public with full assurance. I now come to the question of how to put the information across to the public, a matter beset with difficulties. Exhortations whether by means of the written word, as in leaflets and posters and films, or by means of the spoken word, as in lectures, are, I am convinced, of little use as isolated events except to deal with an emergency such as an outbreak of infectious disease where the emotion of fear in the individual gives rise to a state in which interest develops. In fact, interest in a subject does not arise spontaneously just because the organiser, or the speaker, or the writer happens to be interested himself and so thinks other people should be interested ; nor does interest arise because a logical