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The Urban District Council of Acton.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER
FOR THE YEAR 1897.
To the Chairman and Members of the Acton District Council.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you my Annual Report:
together with tables setting forth the Births, Deaths and Sickness
in the district during the year 1897.
The public health was, upon the whole, satisfactory; the
death rate for the year being 15.9 per thousand of the population,
and I should have had the satisfaction of recording a much lower
rate but for an outbreak of epidemic diarrhoea during the summer
months, which was responsible for no less than eighty deaths. In
this report I have dealt with the probable causes of the outbreak,
and the precautions to be taken in the future with a view of
preventing the disease becoming epidemic.
The Section of this report which deals with the prevalence
of Zymotic disease in the district may, with regard to Small Pox,
Scarlet Fever, Whooping Cough and Puerperal Fever be called
extremely satisfactory, there being not one single death to record
from these diseases, and only two deaths from Typhoid Fever,
and two from Measles. Though we have no Isolation Hospital at
present, yet the Notification Act is of great benefit to the district.
In securing authentic reports of the first cases that are recognised,
we are able, in many cases, to confine the disease to one
house, by educating the people up to their responsibilities as set forth
in the Public Health Act, and carefully explaining to them the
danger likely to ensue to their neighbour's health from any careless
disobedience to our instructions.