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18
the treatment of general cases, and use made by the County Council
of Grimsdyke. Of the 203 deaths, 67 took place at the Orthopaedic
Hospital, 3 at the North Middlesex County Hospital, 8 at Harrow
and Wealdstone Hospital, 79 in private houses, 36 in nursing
homes (including the deaths of 4 infants whose mothers had been
confined in the home), 10 outside and one in the Isolation Hospital.
Of the 705 deaths of local residents which occurred outside
the area, most took place in institutions, 270 being at Redhill
Hospital, 117 at Redhill House and 27 (including 11 new-born
infants) at other County Hospitals. 8 deaths occurred at institutions
for the treatment of tuberculosis and 28 at Shenley Hospital.
51 deaths took place in hospitals just outside the district and
68 in various of the London general and maternity hospitals, this
figure including 5 infants of mothers confined in the hospitals.
16 of the deaths amongst local residents occurring outside the
district were due to enemy action.
1,725 deaths in a population of 188,710 is a death rate of 9.1,
a sharp rise in the figures for previous years, which for the years
1934-39 ranged between 7.1 and 8.1. The corrected death rate
obtained by the application of the area comparability factor of
1.23 is 11.2. The previous highest number of deaths in the
district in any one year was 1,408 in 1939. The altered rules
which are followed in classifying the deaths into their various
categories precludes any detailed examination into the cause of
the increase of some 300 deaths. Intracranial cardio-vascular
diseases show an increase from 69 to 163 and respiratory complaints
from 118 to 236. These increases are equally divided in the sexes
and occurred mostly amongst persons over 55 years of age. 36 of
the increase were accounted for by there being 150 as compared
with 124 deaths amongst infants under one year of age. Deaths
from violence rose from 57 to 126, most of this increase being
accounted for by the use of an allocation which amongst the
civilian population at any rate, is new, namely death through war
injuries or enemy action. One classification in which a reduced
number of deaths took place this year is that of suicide, there
being only 11 cases in 1940 as against 14 in 1939. Fatalities of the
infectious diseases expressed as a rate per thousand population
compare favourably with the figure for the country as a whole,
the rates for whooping cough (0.005), diphtheria (0.01) and
influenza (0.13), being lower than the corresponding national rates
of 0.02, 0.06 and 0.32, the rate for measles at 0.02 being the same.
The figure of 7.0 deaths per thousand live-births for diarrhoea and
enteritis in infants under two years of age was much greater than
the national figure of 4.6.