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11
Notification:—The total number of notifications received during the year under
the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, Section 255, was 3,980; live births, 3,799;
stillbirths, 181. The total notifications in 1937 was 3,877. The provisions of the
Act relating to this requirement, it is interesting to note, were fully complied with.
Speaking generally, it may be said that nowadays the necessity for notifying is not
less well recognised than that for registration.
The main sources of the notifications are set out below. In some cases duplicate
notifications, from different sources, were received with regard to the same birth.
From parents6
„doctors66
„midwives175
„hospitals, nursing homes, etc.3,733
3,980
Of the total births notified, 181 referred to still-births (89 males and 92 females);
2,155 took place at Queen Charlotte's Hospital; 562 at Middlesex Hospital;
172 at St. Mary Abbots Hospital; and 311 were born at home. Of those notified
as having occurred in St. Marylebone, 3,116 belonged to other Boroughs. Of the
181 still-births 29 (14 males and 15 females) were to St. Marylebone mothers.
DEATHS.
Registration:—The number of deaths registered in 1938 was 1,008. This
figure is inclusive of persons who, though normally resident in the Borough, died in
institutions outside, but exclusive of persons who, though they died in St. Marylebone,
were ordinarily resident in other parts of England or Wales. Deaths of persons
ordinarily resident outside the borders of England and Wales are included in the
St. Marylebone figures if they occur in the Borough.
The corrected death-rate* per thousand for the year was 11.0.
In the previous year, the rate was 12.98 and the number of deaths 1,202.

*By a "corrected death-rate" is meant one which has been treated in such a way, raised or
lowered in a certain ratio, as to be comparable with the death-rates similarly treated of other
districts. That "correction" is necessary is due to the fact that differences in death-rates in
various areas are not entirely dependent upon the sanitary conditions existing in these areas, but
also on the constitution (age and sex) of the population. A population consisting of aged persons
would show more deaths than one consisting entirely of young and vigorous adults; a population
made up of a large number of males and a small number of females has more deaths and a higher
death-rate than one in which the females outnumber the males. The death-rates of such populations
are not comparable the one with the other nor with those of populations differently constituted.
To overcome this difficulty the Registrar-General issues a "factor for correction" for
each district which represents the number of times which the actual death-rate of each must be
raised in order to permit of its examination side by side with the rates of other districts. The
" factor for correction " in the case of St. Marylebone in 1938 is 0.99, and the corrected deathrate
is obtained by multiplying with this figure the number of deaths per 1,000, calculated from
the total deaths and the population estimated to the middle of the year.