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4
ADVance 4831. Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Bethnal Green, E.2,
June, i960.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green.
Mr. Mayor, Ladles and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my report on the health and sanitary
circumstances of the Borough for the year 1959-
Statistics. The causes of death in the Borough very well illustrate
some of the health problems which the country is facing today.
Before we discuss the debit side of this problem perhaps 1 should
mention a very striking achievement and that is the reduction in the
infant mortality rate which in 1959 was 23.2 per 1,000 total live
births, which compares very favourably with the 168 infant death rate
per 1,000 sixty years ago. If we examine the deaths in the age group
1-14 we find only four deaths - 1 from bronchitis and 3 from accidents.
Two of these fatal accidents occurred in the home which tends to
confirm the fact already known that more people are killed as the
result of accidents in the home than on the road
If we turn to the causes of death in the age group 45-64 we find
that carcinoma of the lung killed 11 males against 3 females, a very
striking difference between the sexes which is most unlikely to happen
by accident. Under the heading of coronary diseases the males are
again very much worse off and we find that 21 males died from this
disease against only 2 females, and to conclude this list of striking
disadvantage shown by males we see that bronchitis killed 20 males
against only 4 females.
Smoking undoubtedly is one cause of the increased mortality of
males in the age group 45-64 and according to recent reports also too