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TO HIS WORSHIP THE MAYOR, THE ALDERMEN AND THE COUNCILLORS OF THE
BOROUGH OF PADDINGTON.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies, and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit for your consideration my report on the vital statistics of
the Borough and the work of your Public Health Department during the past year, this being
the fifteenth report which I have had the privilege of preparing. The Local Government
Board requires the annual report to be issued during the month of June in each year, otherwise
I should have preferred to have postponed its preparation until the results of the Census
of this year had been issued. The Preliminary Report of the Census of April last was issued
under date of 10th of this month, by which time this report had been set up and the greater
part of it passed for the press.
By the method adopted in your Department, the population of the Borough at the middle
of last year was estimated at 152,396 persons, 608 less than the total arrived at bv the
Registrar-General. The natural increment of the population during the nine and three-quarters
years from April 1901, justified an estimate of something over 155,(WO persons. The provisional
total obtained at the recent Census (142,576) shows an actual decrease of 1,400 persons
from the final total (143,976) of the Census of 1901. Assuming such decrease to have been
uniformly distributed over the ten years 1901-11, the amended estimate of the population at
the end of June, 1910, would be 142,611—9,785 less than the estimate used in this ReportBased
on such amended estimate, the principal rates for the past year should be—
Corrected birth-rate, 21.18 (not, 19.83) ; morbidity-rate, 3.66 (not, 3.43) ; and nett death rate,.
12.58 (not, 11.78).
It is evident, therefore, that the rates for the past decennium which are based on estimates of
the population, will require to be re-calculated. For that reason, it would be waste of time
and space to say anything here about those rates. Attention may be called, however, to
the reduction in the total number of cases of infectious diseases which were reported tothe
Department during the past year. The increase in the number of cases of enteric fever
is largely accounted for by the groups of cases described in the report (see page 18).
The infantile mortality being calculated on births actually taking place, and not on
estimates of the population, the rates given in this report can be accepted as final and the best
which existing arrangements for registration and transference of births and deaths will give.
For the first time the corrected rate was below 100, the rate for the past year obtained from the
Department's records having been 97 and that published by the Registrar-General, 96. The
comparison of the rates (partially corrected only) given on page 43 of the report, clearly
shows the great changes which have taken place in the infantile mortality. The preliminary
figures given in Appendix B indicate that while there have been reductions in the mortality
at all, or nearly all, the ages under one year mentioned in that Appendix, the reductions have
been greater at ages above one month than in the younger ages. The fact that there was
some increase in the mortality during the first day of life during the last quinquennium, when
the reduction in the total infantile mortality was most marked, is worth careful inquiry, and
I hope to submit a more complete report on the subject at a future date.