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6
PREFACE.
The health of the inhabitants of the district has not been
subjected to the disturbance of any unusual factor during the
year and is generally satisfactory.
The expected biennial epidemic of measles appeared a little
later than in past years but this follows the general trend of recent
years and whereas the late autumn was the usual time for it to
begin, in 1938 the onset was not general until January.
The increasing average age of the population can be gauged by
the fact that no less than 52.65 per cent of all deaths occurred in
the age period 65 years and over. While the number of children
entering the primary schools has fallen from 3,388 in 1935 year by
year to 2,845 in 1938. The drift evident in Lambeth is common
to the population of the country as a whole and portrays a lugubrious
future for the younger generations of supporting increasing numbers
of aged people whose dead weight as non-producers must be borne
on their shoulders.
The population is estimated by the Registrar-General to be 1,000
less than in the previous year while the natural increase by excess
of births over deaths is 587. The corrected death rate is 11.78 per
thousand population, while the infantile mortality has never before
reached the low record of 51 per thousand live births.
The increasing importance of air raid precautions has laid such
a burden upon every member of the public health department
that it has become impossible to pay that adequate attention to
detail which in the past has been found necessary for satisfactory
service. It is fully realised that everyone should share in
supporting the burden, but the limit has been nearly reached in the
public health department on more than one occasion. The