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have been as few as 85 in 1939 and as many as 3,734 in 1926. Of equal interest, however, is the
mortality rate per thousand cases, for there has been an almost steady decline from a figure of
17.4 in 1926 to 1.8 in 1946.
Measles is a disease which chiefly affects children, and deaths, when they occur, affect
earlier rather than later age periods. The disease tends to be most serious in children under 5.
The continuous reduction, therefore, in mortality from measles can well be associated with the
care which has been given by your health visitors to young sufferers from this disease. Measles
is notifiable, and every case in children under 5 is visited and the parents advised by your staff.
Conclusion.
It is difficult in these days to separate preventive from curative medicine. The work,
therefore, of a Medical Officer of Health and, in fact, the Public Health Department, is completed
only by the help and active co-operation of the doctors who are practising in the borough, and
I wish to take this opportunity of thanking them for their ever present assistance. It is they
who first see disease in the home and advise as to the initial methods necessary to prevent its
spread, and it is their co-operation and the information which they give to the Public Health
Department which sets in motion the machinery we have available to improve health and retard
disease.
I am deeply indebted to the Council and the Committees which I immediately serve for
the courtesy, help and co-operation I have received throughout the year.
I would also like once more to refer to the work of my staff. The Health Department of
your Council works as a very happy and, I trust, efficient team, the leader of which it has been
a pleasure and privilege to be during 1946.
I beg to remain,
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
DENNIS H. GEFFEN,
Medical Officer of Health.
(7090)
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