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9
To the Right Worshipful The Mayor, Aldermen,
and Councillors of the City of Westminster.
Mr. Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
Annual Report for 1952.
I submit for your consideration my twenty-eighth report on the
health and sanitary conditions of the City of Westminster. This report
has been prepared in accordance with Circular 2/53 of the Ministry of
Health for the report has likewise to be presented to the Minister.
The winter of 1952-53 was one of the most unpleasant for fully fifty
years. Fog, tempest and flood, characterised a period singularly free
from severe frost but the abnormal rainfall of 9 inches in twenty-four
hours at Lynmouth and surrounding areas on 15th August followed by
catastrophic floods will long be remembered. In London and the Home
Counties in the month of December occurred one of the most damaging
fogs of the last fifty or sixty years. It accounted for a very high death
rate among the elderly, particularly those afflicted by chronic diseases
of the heart and lungs. In the first week of February of the current year
abnormally high spring tides whipped by North East gales caused immense
devastation along most of the Eastern seaboard of England and in the
Thames Estuary. So far as 1952 is concerned, apart from floods of
August and the fog in December, the weather of the year was not unusual.
There was no prolonged brilliant summer nor an abnormally severe winter
but the average rainfall was higher than in 1951.
The Registrar General's estimate of population of the City has risen
from 100,000 to 100,800. The general death rate has fallen from 11.87
to 10.05 and this in spite of the increase in deaths in the two weeks
following the December fog. As compared with the two weeks prior to
the fog, the number of deaths from cardiac and respiratory causes increased
respectively from 7 to 38 and 9 to 44. The birth rate has fallen slightly
from 12.35 to 12.33 per thousand of the population and this is in accord
with the tendency in London and the country generally. Infantile
mortality was considerably lower than in 1951, 24.93 per thousand
infants born and up to the age of one year. This is the lowest death rate
for infants ever recorded in the City and compares with 23.8 for London
as a whole. There were 1,243 births during the year and 31 deaths of
infants under one year of age in the same period. One maternal death
occurred as a result of internal haemorrhage following tubal pregnancy.
Deaths from cancer in its various forms numbered 238 compared with
232 last year. Those from cancer of the lung and bronchus 42, the same
as in 1951, but while the male deaths were fewer those among women
increased from 5 to 11. Disease of the heart and circulation, including
vascular lesions of the nervous system, claimed 464 deaths compared
with 484 in 1951, and with very few exceptions among those well over
middle age. There were a few more deaths from tuberculosis of the
lungs, 46 compared with 35 in 1951, and again mostly among males and
those over 45 years of age. Throughout the country generally there
has been during the past few years a steady decline in the number of
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