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7
Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Pancras Road, N.W. 1.
July, 1920.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you the Sixty-Fourth
Annual Report on the vital statistics and sanitary condition of the
Sanitary District of St. Pancras, including particulars of the
year's work of the Public Health Department. It is the seventh
annual report which it has been my duty to submit.
It is satisfactory to record that the mortality during 1919 has
been the lowest on record, in spite of the fact that the ravages
of the influenza epidemic continued during the earlier months.
For the first time the net St. Pancras deaths for the year were
less than three thousand, and the annual death-rate was down to
13.4 per 1000 civil population. It is noteworthy that the wartime
conditions, some of which still continue, have not had a
more unfavourable effect on the mortality figures.
The deaths of infants under one year of age also were less in
number than in any previous year, but there is reason to believe
that they are still more numerous than they need be, and that
patient effort in this direction is yet required.
In regard to births the continuous decline which had been
observed during the war reached its greatest depth in the middle
of 1919, but during the last two quarters there was a marked
increase, with the result that the recovery shows itself in an
increase over last year in the figures for the year.
As a result of the favourable variation in the births and deaths,
there was an excess of births over deaths of 894 for the year, as
compared with an excess of deaths over births of 596 which was
recorded in 1918.
In regard to infectious diseases, the outstanding feature of the
year was the cessation of the phenomenal outbreak of influenza.
This raged during part of the summer and autumn of 1918, and
was still grave in the spring of 1919, but had almost spent itself
by the end of the first quarter, since which time there has been
no serious recrudescence. The total St. Pancras deaths certified
during the year 1919 as being caused by this disease numbered 260,
as compared with 700 in the previous year, but the mortality
actually due to the epidemic was no doubt even greater.