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Public Health Department,
Lambeth Town Hall,
Brixton Hill, S.W. 2.
March, 1924.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The vital and mortal statistics for the Borough for the year
1923 deserve special attention, in that the general and zymotic
death-rates and the infantile mortality rate are the lowest ever
registered in the annals of the present Borough or of the late
Parish. There has been a great saving of life during the past
year, especially in children under 5 years of age and in infants
under 1 year of age, and this saving becomes enormous, if calculated
over a period of 20-25 years, and comparing the present day
figures with the averages of the decennia 1891-1900 (Parish),
1901-1910 (Borough), and 1911-1920 (Borough) respectively. Thus
the Borough general death-rate and general zymotic death-rate
for 1923 are 11.3 and 0.4 per 1,000 of the population, as compared
with 18.4 and 2.4 respectively for the Parish (averages for decennium
1891-1900), whilst the infantile mortality rate is 42.7 per
1,000 of the uncorrected births as compared with 146.1 for the
same period. The reduction in the total numbers of deaths
amongst infants (under 1 year) and especially amongst young
children (under 5 years) is unprecedented, and cannot be explained
as due to meteorological conditions (low 4 ft. earth temperature)
only. Other causes must be sought, and will be found in the
Council's activities in child welfare work (the inauguration of the
Lambeth Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme, the work of the
Health Visitors and the Council's Milk Assistance Scheme and Milk
Depot). Apart from general death-rates, the special death-rates
for infectious diseases are correspondingly low, e.g., scarlet fever,
diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, diarrhcea, typhoid fever,
etc., whilst the death-rates for tuberculosis (both all forms and
pulmonary) are specially noteworthy, in view of the Lambeth
Municipal Tuberculosis Dispensaries Scheme, viz., 1.1 and 0.8,