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and the social class IV and V percentage has risen from 21 to 25. In
other words the social class advantage which has always been possessed
by the baby in classes I and II as compared with classes IV and V still
persists in spite of the levelling out of the social classes and in the
medical services available for them. These figures however are not
the same for all the towns and in Lewisham, for example, there is some
evidence that the social class IV and V babies do not have a worse
survival rate than the social class I and II babies. This is also the
position in Lambeth, but in none of the other towns, and it will be
interesting to see if the figures are coincidental or. whether they will
be repeated this year.
With regard to the other main figures obtained, namely, tuberculosis
notifications and deaths, deaths from heart disease, deaths from
pneumonia and deaths from bronchitis, it is not possible to give a
social/occupation class comparison until the social/occupation class
percentages are known for the various areas. These should soon be
available as a result of the April, 1951 census. However the figures
for the towns can be compared with each other and also, though to a
more limited extent, they might be compared with the social class
percentages amongst the births — but only on the assumption that
these show a fair cross.section of the population.
Over the towns as a whole the pulmonary tuberculosis notifications
were 131 per 100,000 population (Lewisham 117), and the deaths
from respiratory tuberculosis gave a rate of 33 (Lewisham 26).
Deaths from heart disease were 344 per 100,000 population, deaths from
pneumonia 56 and deaths from bronchitis 88 per 100,000 population
(Lewisham 349, 66 and 94, respectively). The pulmonary tuberculosis
notifications show that only 8 per cent, were in classes I and II, 67 per
cent, in class III and 25 per cent, in classes IV and V. On the other
hand, deaths from heart and circulatory diseases show that 18 per cent,
were in classes I and II, 57 per cent, in class III and 25 per cent, in
classes IV and V. Deaths from pneumonia and from bronchitis occupied
a rather intermediate position in the social classification. In pneumonia
15 per cent, were in classes I and II and 29 per cent, in classes IV and V,
whilst in bronchitis 12 per cent, were in classes I and II and 30 per cent,
in classes IV and V, leaving 55 per cent, in the case of pneumonia and
57 per cent, in the case of bronchitis in class III.
Reverting to the child welfare statistics the social class divisions
are even more apparent. The notified premature birth rate for the
towns was 60.5 per thousand births, the rate of social class I being
40.7, II 51.4, III 60.6, IV 67.0 and V 63.7. The registered stillbirth
rate for the towns was 21.1, but here the social class I rate was only 9.3
whereas classes II to V were 16.9, 20.6, 23.6 and 26.0 respectively.
The infant death rate for the towns was 32.4, but here again there was
a wide divergence as between the social classes, class I being 14.9,
II, 21.2, III 32.1, IV 38.0 and V 41.7.