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6
Public Health Department,
Town Hall, Greenwich, S.E.10.
July, 1955
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my agreeable duty to present this account of the health
and environmental ciroumstances of our Borough for 1954.
The population has increased and is now well over 90,000.
The death rate has declined to the new low figure of 8.79 and still
births have decreased by 7.
This year has seen a further increase in the Infantile Mortality
rate from 18.1 to 22.17. This is the second consecutive year that
this rate has increased, and while it would be unfair and unwise to
draw any definite conclusions from this, a more disturbing feature
is that neo-natal deaths (deaths within the first 4 weeks of birth)
constituted 76.6% of all infant deaths under one year, as against the
usual figure of 45% to 55%. It is recognised that the first four
weeks of life are the most vulnerable and it is in these early days that
the value of effective ante- and post-natal care becomes apparent.
Mothercraft also plays an important part at this time.
I have analysed the causes of each neo-natal death and I find
that 50% were attributable to premature birth. Many factors
involved in prematurity are obscure and little understood, but
high on the list of preventive measures must be good ante-natal
supervision, which can reduce to an absolute minimum the incidence
of premature birth and at the same time ensure that if a child is
born early it is born healthy with every chance of survival. I
think it is also clear that much has yet to be learned about the care
and management of these small infants, clinging so precariously
to life. Twenty-five per cent, of deaths were attributable to con—
genital defects, none apparently related to pre-natal virus infection
of the mother, and in the present state of knowledge of eugenics
and heredity nothing can be done about preventing these embryological
abnormalities. Four of the infants died of broncho—
pneumonia and it always seems tragic in these days of chemotherapeutic
and anti-biotic drugs that lives should be lost to