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Public Health Department,
98a Avenue Road,
Hampstead, N.W.3.
25th May, 1964.
TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS
OF THE METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF HAMPSTEAD.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report on the health
and sanitary circumstances of the Borough of Hampstead during
1963.
One of the important functions of the public health
services is the control of communicable diseases, and whilst
the importance of some diseases, such as scarlet fever, has
considerably declined because they no longer cause an
appreciable number of deaths, and because they are susceptible
to treatment by modern methods, and whilst the incidence of
other diseases has declined, the prevention of the spread of
diseases is one of the major contributions to the health and
welfare of our society.
Not all communicable diseases are notifiable, and it is
not practicable nor indeed advisable always to prevent some of
the common infectious diseases of children. For example
mumps is a somewhat painful but not dangerous disease in
children, but it can be much more serious if contracted in
adult life, and german measles, which is a very mild disease,
can have very serious consequences for the unborn child if it
is contracted by an expectant mother during the first few
months of pregnancy.
At the other end of the scale smallpox is a very
infectious disease with a very high death rate, and one in
which treatment, other than good nursing, has little effect,
but it is a disease which can be prevented by vaccination, and
it is by vaccination that the disease has been completely
eradicated from this country, any cases occurring being due to
the importation of the disease from abroad.
Similarly diphtheria has now fortunately become a comparatively
rare disease because of its control by immunisation.
It is perhaps early yet to say what effect immunisation has
had on poliomyelitis. During the epidemic of 1947 there were
some 7,000 cases throughout the country which caused about 700