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REPORT
of the Medical Officer of Health
for the year 1958
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present to you the Annual Report on the health of the
Borough for the year 1958.
The population of the Borough which levelled off in 1957
resumed its slight upward trend, the total population being estimated
at 337,900, some 300 over the previous year.
The crude birth rate for 1958 was 15.30 per thousand, a slight
increase over the previous year and the adjusted birth rate was
14.68. The crude death rate for the year was 15.36, the adjusted
rate being 10.75 per thousand of the population. The adjusted rates
were arrived at after taking into account the area comparability
factor.
The record infant mortality rate of 15 which I noted in my last
year's report was not improved upon in 1958 for this year the rate
per 1,000 live births was 19.3. This rate was based on a total of
100 deaths of infants under one year as compared with 79 in the
previous year, and although not as good as in 1957, is still not
unsatisfactory and compares with 22.6 for the County of London
and 22.6 for the country as a whole. As these rates become smaller,
fortuitous fluctuations from year to year must be expected. In noting
last year that for the first time in our history no woman had died
from the effects of pregnancy or child birth, I said it would be too
much to hope that in every future year I should be able to report an
equally satisfactory result. In 1958, in fact, five mothers died from
accidents or diseases of pregnancy and child birth, giving a maternal
mortality rate of 0.94 per thousand live and still births.
There was a big drop in the number of cases of infectious disease
in 1958 compared with 1957 due in the main to the much smaller
number of cases of measles that were notified and to a lesser extent