View report page

i
BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK
Public Health Department,
Walworth Road, S.E.17.
The Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
Metropolitan Borough of Southwark.
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have pleasure in presenting my Annual Report for the year
1950.
Reviewing the year briefly as a whole, it will be observed that
whilst the population has continued to increase since before
the end of the war, the increase in 1950 was much smaller than
previously. Further, both birth and death rates are declining.
The incidence of the common infectious diseases was low,
except for an increase of dysentery and food poisoning, which
gives me no little concern, particularly as the causes of these
conditions are known and are preventable by "cleanliness"
used in its widest meaning. The remedy, I think, is that of
education, not only of the food handlers, but also of the public
generally.
The most pressing need, not only of this Borough, but of the
majority of towns in the country, is for more and more housing
accommodation. I know of no more important factor which
would contribute to the general happiness and wellbeing—and
therefore good health, both mental and physical—than that of
adequate housing accommodation for every family. The intolerable
conditions under which many of our citizens are living and
which I come across daily lead not only to much distress and
misery but to many broken marriages and in some cases to
serious mental breakdowns. I am informed by several of our
local medical practitioners that over a third of the patients who
attend their surgeries regularly are suffering from serious
anxiety neurosis directly due to bad housing conditions.
Whether this is an under or an over estimate I cannot say, but
I can speak of the deplorable conditions I find, and I know as a
medical man that these conditions lead to great mental distress
and unrest, and that people being under tension of this nature
are neither physically well, nor can they give of their best.
In making these remarks, I fully realise that in no way can
any reflection be cast on the Council's efforts to produce houses,
which are very restricted by higher authority, but I feel that we
b2