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ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Bexley.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my annual report for
the year 1950.
The vital statistics of the Borough have again been
satisfactory indicating that the health of the population
has been well maintained. The birth rate during 1950
was 13.13 per 1,000 of the population compared with
14.02 in 1949 and 15.36 in 1948. The birth rate for
1947 was 18.72 per thousand and it would appear that
the increase in the birth rate at. the end of the War
has not been maintained and that there has been a
reversal to the tendency of the birth rate to fall which
has been noticed during the past 40 years. The birth
rate for the Borough of Bexley corrected by the use of a
comparability factor (0.94), supplied by the RegistrarGeneral,
was 12.3. The uncorrected birth rate for the
country as a whole during 1950 was 15.8, so that the
Bexley rate for the year is appreciably lower than the
national rate. The death rate for the Borough during
1950 was 8.56 per thousand of the home population, or,
after correction by means of the comparability factor for
deaths (1.18), 10.10 compared with an uncorrected death
rate for the country as a whole of 11.6 per thousand.
A new low record in the infant mortality rate was
achieved during 1950, namely 14.48 infantile deaths
during the first year of life for every thousand live
births, compared with 24 per thousand in 1949, and a
national rate for 1950 of 29.8 per 1,000. The infant
mortality rate is perhaps the most sensitive index we
possess of social conditions and the care afforded to young
children by their parents and by the personal health
services. The Medical Officer of Health recording, in
1945, a rate of 33.9 per thousand, commented that "a
goal of 25 can be reached in this area". It would have
been difficult to believe at that time that, in the course
of 5 years, the infant mortality rate for the Borough
would be halved, and there is no reason to believe that
this improvement will not be maintained, given favourable
and settled conditions. The best infant mortality
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