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3
Town Hall,
Euston Road, N.W.I.
22nd July, 1946.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras.
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have pleasure in presenting to you my annual report upon the conditions of health in
the Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras for the year 1945.
The year in question was marked by the defeat of Germany and Japan, and thus the
end of the war. It was a year, therefore, of high hopes, in which one anticipated a resumption
of those services conducive to health and comfort, which had been abandoned during the hard
period of the war.
Few of our vast hopes have been realised. So great has been the interruption in communal
activity and family life during the war that in the latter months of the year it was
possible to think only of what was required in the near future and to contemplate planning
for the years ahead. At the time of writing this report we are still in the stage of planning,
and the public generally have been little able to realise the benefits of peace, except insofar as
they have been freed from the dangers of war. In every walk of life there has been a feeling
of delay and frustration. Shortage of labour and materials have made it impossible
to alleviate many acute and serious environmental defects, and it would indeed be surprising if
the public did not ask how long it would be before some of their most serious complaints were
to be met.
Despite the effects of the war, the tiredness of the population, the defects and frustrations
which one is bound to meet, there are, however, grounds for satisfaction in some respects.
The outstanding feature of the year is the fact that the infantile mortality rate in St. Pancras
was the lowest ever recorded. On page 12 I have set out in graph form this rate since 1904.
An infantile mortality rate of 44 is usually considered good in any area. In an area such as
St. Pancras it is excellent. It is a tribute to the Health Visitors whose primary duty it is to
keep children well; to the doctors who have attended at our centres and have advised on slight
deviations from normal health, and above all to the general practitioners of the district, to
whom has fallen the lot by day and by night of curing children and keeping minor ailments
from becoming serious illness. But if the mortality rate of 44 per thousand is low it still leaves
us no room for complacency. It is our duty to ask ourselves whether an even lower figure
could and should be obtained. During the year there were 1,957 births to St. Pancras mothers,
and 86 children died before they attained the age of one year. Could any of these deaths
have been prevented by methods known to us today or by improved environmental factors?
The answer to this must be in the affirmative—for of the 86 children who died, 12 died from
pneumonia and 24 from diarrhœa. Of these it is possible that some deaths could have been
prevented by a better parental knowledge, better surroundings, and possibly earlier treatment.
I believe as housing improves in the borough, and when time is available to teach parent-craft
more widely, that an even lower infantile mortality rate will be achieved.