View report page

VI.
REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE YEAR 1915.
To The Worshipful The Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Islington.
Dear Mr. Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
In presenting you with the Sixtieth Annual Report of the Medical Officer
of Health, which deals with the health and sanitary state of your borough for
1915, as well as with other matters appertaining to them, 1 regret that I am
not able to congratulate you either on an increased birth-rate or a decreased
death-rate, for unfortunately the former has never been so low since the
registration of births became compulsory nor the latter so high since 1896.
Consequently, the natural increase in the population, which was only 5 69 per
1,000 inhabitants, has never been so low. It has been steadily growing less
since 1870-80, when it was 16.32 per 1,000 of the inhabitants. It is this ever
diminishing figure, not only in Islington but throughout the Kingdom, that
makes infant life so valuable and has prompted the Government to call on
Local Authorities to use every effort to stop the great wastage that is everywhere
taking place. The call has not been in vain, for, as you have been told
by the President of the Local Government Board, nearly all of them are
responding to it. I regret very much that Islington is not enrolled among them,
although I feel confident the time is not far distant when it, too, will be found
doing its utmost to save those lives which are so necessary for carrying on the
work of the nation in the next generation. There are also strong humanitarian
reasons why public authorities should not allow these infants to be sacrificed,
especially as many of the preventable and curable diseases from which they die
are characterized by most excruciating pain. The Council, I trust, will
perceive that public health work does not finish with what is popularly known