View report page

2
fever, measles and whooping cough has declined remarkably during recent years.
This decline is not wholly accounted for by improved standards of hygiene and treatment.
The virulence of the infections may increase again though we now have at
our disposal therapeutic measures recently discovered which should prevent a return
to the mortalities of former years. Though the former great pestilences, plague,
cholera and malaria have disappeared from this country, new ones may take their
place of which the recent epidemics of poliomyelitis may be a forerunner. Vigilance,
therefore, must be the watchword. It must also be borne in mind that indirect
attack against disease has been of outstanding importance. Poverty and unemployment
with their attendant anxieties, overcrowding, atmospheric pollution, bad housing,
all invite disease and no effort must be spared in national and local efforts to
maintain good nutrition and a healthy environment at work and at home. A result
of the lowered death-rate is an increase in the number of the aged and in the incidence
of the degenerative diseases from which they die. Between 1900 and 1950 the
death-rate from cancer increased from 0.96 to 2.20 per 1,000 of the population and
from diseases of the heart and blood vessels from 1.56 to 3.99 As will be seen from
the report much attention is being given to the problem of how to improve the lot
of the chronic, and aged, sick.
With the stress and strain of modern life neuroses and psycho-neuroses exact a
heavy toll. Little can, as yet, be done but it is a field of preventive work which is
becoming of increasing importance.
Although 1950 was the second full year of the working of the National Health
Service Act of 1946 much time was still spent in discussions with the other bodies
concerned in providing the service to ensure that the interlocking responsibilities did
not cause any breakdown or delay in the provision of the facilities required by the
inhabitants of London. There are still occasional difficulties which arise from time to
time but every effort is made to overcome them.
Brief reports of the divisional medical officers which will be found in pages 126 to
137, show that the scheme of decentralisation of the Council's principal health services
is working satisfactorily.
The birth-rate (15.7 per 1,000 of the population) was again lower (16.7 in 1949).
The general death-rate of 11.3 per 1,000 of the population was slightly lower than
that for 1949 (11.7). There were further falls in infant and maternal mortality and
new low records have again been attained. The rate of infantile mortality was 26 per
1,000 live births compared with an average of 63 during the ten pre-war years and of
27 last year. The neo-natal and maternal mortalities were 16.9 and 0.53 per 1,000
live and total births respectively, compared with the average for the ten years prior
to the war of 25 and 2.8.
The tuberculosis service is reviewed over the last 50 years (page 81).
The work of the chemical branch continued to grow and an account of its
activities will be found on page 30.
Attendances at the maternity and child welfare centres showed a tendency to
decline, 79 per cent. of all infants born being brought to a centre in their first year of
life compared with 84 per cent in 1949 (page 46).
Details of an investigation into the care of all premature babies born at home
during the year is given on page 49. It is very pleasing to report that 375 of the 416
premature babies born made satisfactory progress.
Demands on the home help service continued to outstrip supply (page 65).
The maintenance of a high level of immunisation against diphtheria suffered a
slight setback probably due to the publicity given to exaggerated reports of cases of
paralysis following inoculation during the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1949 (page 66).
Every effort must be made to maintain a high level of immunity in the child
population otherwise there will be a return to the years when thousands of cases of
diphtheria occurred every year.