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The most gratifying feature of the Annual Report for 1910, and
for which the Council are to be congratulated, is the remarkable
decline in the mortality rates, both general and infantile. The
general death-rate is the lowest ever previously recorded in the old
Parish and Borough of Battersea. More gratifying still is the
great decline in North-West and East Battersea districts. The
steady and persistent efforts of the Council during the past few
years in regard to the effective sanitary supervision of these
districts, e.g., the appointment of female Sanitary Inspectors,
Health Visitors, &c., has resulted in a decrease in the death-rate in
North-West Battersea from 21.0 per 1,000 in 1900 to 13.9 per 1,000
in 1910, and in East Battersea during the same period from 18.9
per 1,000 to 11.9 per 1,000. Results such as these are indeed remarkable,
and have more than justified the action of the Council in
their efforts to maintain a high standard of health in the Borough.
It is interesting to note the place the Borough takes during
1910 in the Registrar-General's corrected returns amongst the
twenty-nine Metropolitan Boroughs. There are 21 Boroughs with
a higher general death-rate, 13 with a higher zymotic death-rate, and
17 with a higher infantile mortality rate. Taking the ten South
Metropolitan Boroughs, Lewisham has the lowest general deathrate,
viz., 9.6, and Bermondsey the highest, viz., 17.7 ; only 3 of the
ten Southern Boroughs having a lower death-rate than Battersea.
London as a whole has a birth-rate of 23.6, a corrected deathrate
of 13.4, a corrected zymotic (death) rate of 1.14 per 1,000
population, and an infantile mortality (corrected) rate of 103 per
1,000 births. For England and Wales the figures are: Birthrate,
24.8; death-rate, 13.4; infantile mortality, 106 per 1,000
births.