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57
Cancer.—This subject continues to engage the most serious study.
Deaths certified to be due to cancer numbered 215. The age period
most affected was 45-65 (203 cases). The rate for males as compared
with females was 1.9 to 1.5 per 1,000, and the region most frequently
involved appeared to be the stomach.
Cancer cases now take up a considerable proportion of surgical beds
in general hospitals, and in Westminster there are not only three large
general hospitals dealing with this type of case but a considerable proportion
of the special hospitals also, as for example, St. Peter's Hospital
for genito-urinary diseases and the two hospitals devoted to diseases of
women.
The vast amount of research and clinical work on the radium treatment
of cancer at Westminster Hospital requires special mention. The
staff of this hospital have been for some years in the forefront of clinical
cancer workers in this country. Recognition of the excellence of the
work done led the Radium Commission to choose this hospital for the
grant of a radium bomb for a preliminary period of three years. Extreme
pressure on the beds of the hospital induced the Governing Body to
open and equip a special hospital or annexe for the radium treatment of
cancer cases. This annexe, equipped with the "bomb" for practising
radium treatment, and other apparatus for the treatment of cancer by
deep X Rays, is situated in Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead. There are
22 beds. The Staff comprises the Honorary Physicians and Surgeons of
Westminster Hospital, and a whole-time Physicist, Pathologist and
Radium Officer are engaged in order that research into all forms of
cancer treatment may be strongly pursued in close proximity to the
bedside. The nursing staff is supplied by the parent hospital.
There does not appear to be in Westminster any call for a municipal
cancer clinic, but it is worthy of discussion whether there might not be
great benefit if the hospital authorities were to institute special clinics.
There are quite a number of ways in which the local authority could
co-operate and assist in such a project.
SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE AREA.
Water.—The Ministry of Health does not require any information
as regards water supply in the case of Metropolitan boroughs for the
reason that the main supply for the metropolis is provided by one public
authority, the Metropolitan Water Board. In Westminster, however,
the custom of obtaining private water supplies in the case of large new
buildings is growing. These supplies are obtained from deep or artesian
wells, the borings into the chalk of the London basin reaching a depth
(9583) f.