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6
Public Health Department,
Temporary Offices,
15, Old Ford Road,
Bethnal Green, E.2.
3rd May, 1938.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my annual report relative
to the Public Health work of the Metropolitan Borough of
Bethnal Green for the year 1937.
The general death rate at all ages from all causes was
12.5 per thousand of the population. When corrected by
the comparability factor of the Registrar General (1.13)
the rate becomes 14.1 which is 0.2 below that of the previous
year.
In my report for 1935, I foreshadowed an increase in
the Infant Mortality rate in 1936, chiefly on account of the
expected measles epidemic with its attendant complications
and lowering of resistance to other diseases. Unfortunately
the prognostication was correct and the rate was 98. The
efforts of the Council in the furtherance of the health of the
people arc not spasmodic but. are a steady and unremitting
activity in the use of all its powers. It is very gratifying,
therefore, to report that for the year 1937 the Infant Mortality
rate was the low figure of 54 per thousand births. The rate
for London was 60, while for England and Wales as a whole
it was 58.
The number of mothers dying in child birth was the
same as for the previous year, namely 3. Owing, however,
to the decreased number of births the Maternal Mortality
rate shows a slight increase, i.e., 2.3 as against 2.1 per thousand
births. The rate for England and Wales was 3.11.