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345
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE YEAR 1920.
To the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillora of the Metropolitan
Borough of Stoke Newington.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—
The vital statistics of the Borough for the year 1920 are less
satisfactory than those for 1919; for the general death-rate of
12'4, while low, is above that for fourteen other Metropolitan
Boroughs. 1920 was a year of remarkably low death-rates for
London, and indeed for the whole country; but the circumstances
which favoured low death-rates over the Metropolis generally, were
counterbalanced in Stoke Newington by an exceptionally heavy
incidence of whooping-cough, scarlet fever and diphtheria, as
compared with most of the other Boroughs of London. Therefore
the Borough death-rates, while not higher than in an average
year, do not show the usual satisfactory results when they are
brought into comparison with those of the other Metropolitan
Boroughs. The rate of Infant Mortality (the number of deaths
under one year of age to every thousand births), was exactly the
same as that for the Metropolis as a whole.
Valuable services have been rendered by those medical officers
associated with me in the work of Maternityand Child Welfare and
in the prevention and cure of Tuberculosis.
Considerable arrears of sanitary inspection have been made
up, and the record of work by the sanitary and clerical officials of
the Public Health Department is a particularly good one.
I am, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
HENRY KENWOOD.
March, 1921.