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7
To the Chairman and Members of the
Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Looking through recent annual reports, I have gained the
impression that they have tended to open with a letter full of
admonitions and to be rather of the type that begins "unless."
In view of this, the time seems ripe to alter one's tactics to emerge
from the shadows into the bright sunlight and do a little blessing
counting. It is all very well to make a vague general statement of
this character, but can it be followed up by some concrete facts to
confirm this assertion? In my submission this is so, and I should
like to indicate what in my opinion are some of the local features
for which we should be truly thankful.
Real health is a state of physical and mental well-being
attributable to a mass of factors most of which are within our own
powers of attaining. The main difficulty is that with so many
influences, both hereditary and environmental affecting it, we can
only exceptionally expect everything to be operating in our favour
at any one time. Matters affecting health materially, include a
happy home, full employment, the air we breathe, the water we
drink, the food we eat, and many other environmental conditions,
all of which taken together as a whole can make or mar our
existence.
Now let us consider in detail some of our reasons for gratitude.
In this connection one notices that our infant mortality rate is
well below the average for the whole country, we have a maternal
mortality rate of nil, and an adjusted death rate less than that for
England and Wales. These are all good healthy signs and
indicative of a state of affairs which is eminently satisfactory. The
death rate has admittedly risen a little compared with 1956, but is
still less than in 1955, and this is surely a cause for congratulation
when one considers the magnitude of the influenza outbreak which
affected us no less than the rest of the country in the autumn of
last year. This outbreak which originated in the East, spread
across the world with some speed and was caused by a mutation of
a previously known virus. Fortunately it can be said as a
generalisation that the resultant disease was mild in character and
tended to affect predominantly the younger members of the
community who were of course, better equipped to withstand its
assault, but the problem of its control remained more or less
unsolved. Even should a vaccine with one hundred per cent
efficiency be produced there are the difficulties of preparation,
distribution and injection of virtually the whole population of the
country, and getting it immune before the epidemic strikes. In