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6
effectiveness of a service on its statistical basis and on form
filling, whereas the real value of all work in public health lies
in the personal approach between staff and members of the
public. The effectiveness of this personal approach is demonstrated
so well in the improvement that has taken place in the
care in handling and preparation of foodstuffs, which has been
the main success of the Department during recent months.
Propaganda talks to the workers and the personal visitation by
the Sanitary Inspectors are building up a hygienic food practice
throughout the district.
If one judges the health of a district by its vital statistics,
then Chislehurst and Sidcup is, with a death rate of 8.9, birth
rate 16.1, infant mortality rate 23.3, and a population of eight
persons per acre, a healthy residential district, but we know that
the hospitals are full to capacity and the doctor's surgeries arc
overcrowded, and there are factors such as overcrowded trains
in "rush hours" that make for tiredness of body and mind in
the adult workers. We have not yet reached the state of one
house one family, and until we do there can be no security in
family health.
I cannot end this prefatory letter without an acknowledgment
of the help that I have received from other Chief Officers
and the Chairman and Members of the Health Committee.
I have the honour to be,
Your obedient Servant,
K. E. TAPPER,
Medical Officer of Health.
JUNE, 1952.