London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Lewisham 1951
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Lewisham Borough]
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14
There are discrepancies between the above table and table 3 for
various reasons as given on page 16 of the last annual report. For
comparative purposes therefore it is safer to group the causes of death
which are linked together. Thus code numbers 10 to 15 may be
regarded as all different kinds of cancer, while numbers 17 to 21 are all
diseases of the heart and circulation. Similarly 22 to 25 are best grouped
together.
Certain statistics have therefore been extracted from table 7 and
grouped in this way. They are shown in table 8 which also includes
the percentages of each social class for each disease or group of diseases.
The percentages should be compared with those shown in table 6 for all
deaths.*
Table 8
| Male | Female | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11 | I11 | IV | V | Total | 1 | 11 | I11 | IV | V | Total | ||
| 1, 2 TB | No. | — | 5 | 27 | 8 | 5 | 45 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 18 | ||
| % | — | 11 | 11 | 11 | 6 | 100 | |||||||
| 10-15 Cancers | No. | 39 | 144 | 43 | 14 | 246 | 4 | 40 | 120 | 36 | 21 | 221 | |
| % | 2 | 58 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 100 | |||||||
| 17-21 Heart and circulation | No. | 17 | 93 | 274 | 53 | 497 | 20 | 104 | 342 | 77 | 44 | 587 | |
| % | 55 | 3 | 58 | 8 | 100 | ||||||||
| 22-25 Lung, non-TB | No. | 5 | 32 | 133 | 34 | 238 | 7 | 88 | 17 | 23 | 157 | ||
| % | 2 | 57 | 56 | 100 | |||||||||
| 33, 34 Accidents | No. | 1 | 5 | 18 | 5 | 4 | 33 | 1 | 3 | 16 | 2 | 26 | |
| % | 55 | 4 | 8 | 100 | |||||||||
| 35 Suicide | No. | 1 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 14 | — | 3 | - | 7 | |||
| % | 7 | 58 | 7 | — | 29 | - | 100 | ||||||
* See also sample census figures in appendix D
The following table shows the social classification in relation to
registered births, to registered infant deaths, to notified stillbirths and
to notified premature births, an extra line being added to each group to
indicate the percentages. Apart from the registered births the figures
are too small to be significant, but they will build up over the course
of years; the percentages in the category of registered births can be
compared with those for the registered deaths shown in table 6.