London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Chelsea 1951
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea]
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can be established. To obtained the adjusted death rate, the crude
death rate is multiplied by the "Area Comparability Factor", and as
0.94 represents the "Factor" so far as Chelsea is concerned, the adjustment
results in a death rate of 12.3.
It is most satisfactory to report that no deaths have occurred as
a result of accidents or diseases associated with pregnancy or puerperal
pyrexia since 1946. During the years 1940 to 1946, eleven deaths
were registered from these causes.
A perusal of the short summary set out below will clearly indicate how the enormous wastage of life in this particular age group has been very considerably reduced:-
| Year | Deaths under one year of age | No. of births registered | Rate per 1.000 registered births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 333 | 2,245 | 148 |
| 1910 | 141 | 1,376 | 102 |
| 1920 | 73 | 1,392 | 52 |
| 1930 | 32 | 799 | |
| 1940 | 15 | 428 | 40 |
| 1950 | 21 | 829 | 25 |
| 1951 | 19 | 819 | 23 |
It will be noted that since 1940 there has been an apparent tendency
for the dramatic improvement of the early decades of the century to decline.
The rate, however, must be viewed in conjunction with the actual number of
deaths and births registered. It will be seen that there has been a much
greater proportionate reduction in the number of deaths than in the number
of births.
Infectious Diseases. The number of notifications received during
1951 showed a sharp increase as compared with 1950 (837) and 1949 (616),
and totalled 1,031. The incidence of Measles alone was responsible for
669 notifications, or some 65 per cent of the aggregate. No fatality
oocurred among these measles cases - a happy contrast with the farmer case
mortality which varied between 1.4 per cent and 4.0 per cent in the earlier
decades of the century. As a general rule eighty or ninety per cent of all
persons attaining to the age of twenty years have had measles, and of the
1,289 notifications received during the last three years, approximately
96 per cent of the sufferers were aged between 0 and 15 years. The figures
for the past 7 years conform to the well-known biennial periodicity of
measles which also shows a fairly constant phasic pattern within each twoyear
cycle.
Notifications of Food Poisoning fell from 122 (of which four cases
terminated fatally) in 1950, to 13 last year.
Food and Drugs. As is customary, four hundred samples were examined
and reported upon by the Council's Public Analyst, Mr. T. McLachlan. A
comprehensive account of his work during the year is included in this report.