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TO HIS WORSHIP THE MAYOR, THE ALDERMEN, AND COUNCILLORS OF THE
BOROUGH OF PADDINGTON.
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit to you my Report on the Health of the Borough and
the work of the Public Health Department during the past year.
Vital statistics may be described as equivalent to a balance sheet — the births
figuring on the income side, sickness and deaths on the expenditure, while the estimate
made annually of the population stands for the stock-taking. Just as no balance sheet,
however accurate the income and expenditure accounts may be, is reliable when the stocktaking
is untrustworthy, so are vital statistics but uncertain tests when the estimate of the
population is little better than a guess. With ten years' intervals the intercensal estimates
become increasingly unreliable. The unreliability is the greater when the rate-books show
an increasing proportion of "empties,'" as do those of this Borough. Unfortunately the
system of rating allows no comparison of occupied properties with the number of " inhabited
houses" as defined for census purposes. The only available checks on the estimate given
in this report, which estimate has been based on an assumption of a constant annual increase
equal to that of the decennium of 1891—1900, are those afforded by the " natural increment,"
or balance of births over deaths of total population (see page 1), and by the calculated
numbers of "survivors" at ages under five (see page 40). In both cases the evidence
points to a greater increase than that given by the original estimate. The absolute
necessity of an intermediate (or quinquennial) enumeration of the population cannot be
too strongly urged. Such enumeration would suffice if limited to the sex and age of
each inhabitant.
Although improved methods of "clearance" gave a somewhat larger number of births
in 1907 than in 1906, no satisfaction attaches to that result. The birth rate is still falling.
On the other hand small but satisfactory reductions have to be recorded in the morbidity and
mortality ("all ages" and "infantile") rates. Notification showed that scarlet fever was
unduly prevalent both in the Metropolis as a whole and in the Borough. The other diseases
were below their respective averages. Of the diseases producing death most interest at the
present time attaches to phthisis ("consumption") and "cancer." The former was the
subject of a special report presented to the Public Health Committee in February of
last year, and forwarded to the Council in March. On the recommendation of the Committee
a Conference of representatives from the Metropolitan Sanitary Authorities was
held on June 6th. It is unnecessary to repeat at length what was written in the report
referred to, but it may be permitted to advert to one or two points which are deemed to be
essenital to a successful control of the disease.