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Public Health Department,
Barking, Essex.
July, 1948.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Barking Committee for Education.
The dry bones of statistics are dead; the task of your Medical Officer in
his Annual Report is to make them live.
I am deeply conscious of the fact that this is a difficult task and am
therefore constrained to ask your kindly indulgence.
Once again I must ask you to read this report with imagination so that the
dry bones are knit together and clothed with flesh and skin and stand—a living
witness to the intense story of human endeavour which lies behind the factual
statement I am privileged to submit to you.
This report follows broadly the same design as my previous reports on
this subject, but I have had the temerity to set it forth in a series of questions
and answers which I believe may have some merit in novelty, and which will,
I believe, make it handier as a book of reference, particularly to members of
the public.
I am,
Your obedient servant,
C. LEONARD WILLIAMS,
Medical Officer of Health.