View report page

3
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough
of Lewisham.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I submit herewith my report for the health department for the
year 1955.
Vital statistics
The Registrar General's estimate of the population in midyear
1955 at 223,400 was 800 less than his estimate for midyear 1954
(which in itself was 1,600 less than in the previous year). The decrease
from the 1951 census figure of 227,576 therefore continues. The crude
birth rate for the year at 14.0 shows another small decrease of 0.2 from
the previous year and the adjusted birth rate (allowing for age and sex
distribution of the population) is also slightly lower at 13.0. The crude
death rate at 10.8 is an increase from the 9.95 of the previous year
and compares with 11.5 for the administrative county. The infant
mortality rate at 17 was 4 down on the previous year and is the lowest
recorded, beating the low rate of 19 in 1949. This rate is divisible into
two parts, the neonatal rate (i.e. under one month of age) and the rest
of the first year rate. The neonatal rate also achieved a record low of 11,
though the rest of the first year rate at 6 has been equalled though not
passed on several occasions before. The stillbirth rate went up to 18
from the very low figure of 14 the previous year, but the combined
stillbirth and infant death rate (reproductive wastage) of 35, is equivalent
to the low record which was reached in two previous years, 1954 and
1949. Girl children, as is almost universally the case, had better rates
than boy children and the infant mortality rate for females (per thousand
female live births) was only 13.1 (9.2 neonatal and 3.9 rest of first year).
That figure of 3.9 perhaps merits a short but non.complacent pause for
" counting our blessings." In 1906 the corresponding rate, for all
children, was 83 ; in other words the chance of a child who had reached
the age of one month surviving to its first birthday was a mere 12 to 1
in its favour ; last year, for girl babies, the odds on the first birthday
being reached were over 250 to 1. It would be difficult to exaggerate
the saving in pain, anxiety and distress which this improvement entails.
The premature birth rate, i.e. the number of children weighing 5½lbs.
or less at birth per thousand live births was 69, which is an increase on
the 60 of the previous year. There were unfortunately three maternal
deaths during the year (after nil the previous year) and this gave a rate
of 0.9 per thousand registered live and stillbirths. The various
comparative figures of general statistics since the beginning of the
century are shown in table 10. On the whole those for 1955 are
reasonably satisfactory.
Infectious disease other than tuberculosis
The' total number of notifications received (including 271 for
tuberculosis) reached the high figure of 5,217. This is not a record,
as the figure was 5,581 in 1951, but it is considerably more than double
the 2,263 notifications received in 1954 and this can be accounted for