View report page

48
time when children are still experimenting and before they become
committed.
Despite protestations to the contrary, young people seldom act
as individuals. They imitate and hasten to "conform"—not to the
old patterns of behaviour but to the modern "group" idiom and
they tend to adopt the attitudes of their own particular group.
Perhaps what is needed is not so much an "anti" but a more "pro"
approach on a group basis. Cannot the smoking habit be debased
by emphasising its effect on taste and smell, by pointing out
that tainted breath is not conducive to sex appeal, by highlighting
the reduction of physical prowess resulting from shortness
of breath and by indicating the social disadvantages of a constant
smoker's cough and nicotine stained fingers? Once smoking is made
socially unacceptable the battle will be almost won.
Vascular Lesions of Nervous System.—This class, which
includes deaths arising from Cerebral Haemorrhage, Embolism and
Thrombosis was responsible for a total of 88 deaths (39 Males, 49
females). The age distribution was as follows:—1 between 5
and 15 years; 1 between 35 and 45 years; 11 between 45 and 65
years; 33 between 65 and 75 years and 42 from 75 years upwards.
This year's total of 88 indicates a rise of 8 over that of 1963
and an increase in the rate from 0.96 to 1.05.
Heart Disease.—Under the new classification this disease has
been divided into three sub-headings: (a) Coronary Disease,
Angina, (b) Hypertension with Heart Disease, and (c) Other Heart
Disease.
The total registered deaths allocated to these categories
amounted to 285 (147 males—138 females) compared with a figure
of 305 for 1963, and as usual, the deaths from this category
occupied the principal place in the classification of diseases in
that they formed 31.5% of the total deaths from all causes.
Besides being responsible for a prodigious loss of man-working
capacity in the United Kingdom amounting, it is estimated, to some
12 million week days per year, cardiovascular and atherosclerotic
diseases as a group are responsible for more deaths than any other
single cause and, as such, constitute the greatest possible challenge
to preventive medicine. The urgency of this problem becomes intensified
when it is realised that deaths from arteriosclerotic and
degenerative heart disease are mounting year by year particularly
in the case of middle-aged males. In males between 25 and 45
years the rate of heart attack has doubled during the past ten years.
Each week, 2,000 people in Britain die from coronary disease and
of the yearly total of 100,000 fatalities, one third will be women of
mature years. During a woman's child-bearing epoch her sex
hormones appear to give her a "built-in" protection as a result of