London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Croydon 1933
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Croydon]
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52
1933 showed an increase in the general death-rate; a further
diminution in the birth-rate; and a further decline in the infant
mortality rate, which reached the lowest yet recorded in Croydon.
In view of the decreasing birth-rate, the average age of the whole
population is steadily rising; consequently, sooner or later there
will be an increase in the death-rate quite apart from Public
Health conditions. It would seem this point has been reached,
and any further decline in the death-rate is not to be expected.
Causes of Death.
The chief causes of death during 1933 were:—Organic bean,
disease, 027 deaths, death-rate 2.01; Cancer, 374 deaths, deathrate
1.56; All forms of Tuberculosis, 184 deaths, death-rate 0.77;
Pneumonia (including influenzal pneumonia), 255 deaths, deathrate
1.06; Arterio Sclerosis and Cerebral Haemorrhage, 221 deaths,
death-rate 0.92.
| per 1,000 population. | ||
|---|---|---|
The greatest single group of causes of death as in 1932 was
diseases of the Circulatory system, and of this group Organic Heart
Disease was the most prominent member (627 deaths). Rheumatism
in childhood is indubitably a cause of cardiac breakdown later
in life, more particularly if the original attack of rheumatism
has been overlooked or disregarded.