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4
Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Bethnal Gre.en, E.2.
1 st May, 1929.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is customary, in endeavouring to assess the health of a
District, to take into account certain statistics, amongst others,
the birth and death rates. The birth rate for 1928, the lowest
ever recorded in the Borough, was 19.0 per 1,000 of the
population, contrasted with 19.9 in 1927—a further example
of the steady fall which we have experienced now for some
years past.
The general death rate at all ages and from all causes
was 11.7 which compares with the figure 11.3 per 1,000 of
the population in 1927.
Of the special death rates, the infant mortality figure,
calculated as the number of children dying under 1 year per
1,000 births, is frequently regarded as a sensitive index of
the health of a District. Too much importance cannot be
attached to yearly fluctuations in this figure, for, where comparatively
small numbers form the basis of calculation, the
possible margin of error is proportionally large. It is,
however, worth noting that there has been an increase of 30
per cent. in the number of infant deaths over the figures, for
1927. This suggests the necessity for ever being on the outlook
for any factors inimical to child life.
While we thus have from the birth and death returns a
good deal of information of the two extremes of life, we have
very little definite knowledge of the amount or the nature of
the diseases which periodically incapacitate so many of the
population, diseases which, while not necessarily leading to a
fatal termination, are responsible for grievous suffering to the
individual and result in great loss to the national prosperity.
In the absence of any accurate information of the qualitative
nature of these incapacitating diseases, we have to rely upon the
incidence of certain notifiable infectious diseases as a criterion.
During 1928, the commoner infectious diseases compared favourably,
both in incidence and type, with those in past years, while
the decrease in the number and the severity of the cases of
diphtheria was very satisfactory.