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5
Public Health Office,
Bow Road, E.3.
July, 1930.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of Poplar.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit my third Annual Report upon the Vital Statistics
and Sanitary Condition of the Borough.
Population.—The Registrar-General's estimate of 160,000 shows a
still further reduction on the estimates of previous years.
Births.—The corrected births were fewer than in 1928 and the birth
rate has fallen from 19.9 in that year to 19.1 in 1929. This is the lowest
birth rate recorded in the Borough.
Deaths.—The death rate rose from 11.3 in 1928 to 14.0 in 1929. As
the Registrar-General has noted in his quarterly report No. 321 the
higher death rate "was due in a large measure to influenza and also to
the high mortality from respiratory and circulatory diseases occurring
during the spell of abnormally cold weather experienced throughout the
country in February and early March.''
Infantile Mortality.—The infantile deaths numbered 230, giving a
mortality rate of 75, as compared with 71 in 1928. The higher rate was
in part due to the prevalence of respiratory diseases in the first quarter
of the year, when 104 of the total of 230 deaths occurred. A table showing
the deaths classified under diseases and age groups is printed on page 13.
As indicated in the report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry
of Health the large proportion of deaths occurring in the first month
of life would appear to indicate that the principal cause of neo-natal