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COULSDON AND PURLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present to you my Annual Report for 1945, this being my
fourteenth Report as your Medical Officer of Health.
As you are aware, for the last six years it has only been permissible
to present a duplicated Interim Report annually, from which many
statistics have been omitted for security and other reasons. The relevant
facts have, however, been preserved and I have taken this first opportunity
of presenting them in a comprehensive and printed form.
As your District had in 1945 completed 30 years as a separate Urban
District, it appeared opportune to review the stages in its development
and the trends in the sphere of its public health, at the same time bringing
up to date the vital statistics to cover the war years. During the
preparation of the Report, however, it became obvious that it would
become too voluminous if the full 30 years were surveyed, hence the
present Report has been limited to a record of the years 1939 to 1945.
It is hoped that the survey may be completed in the 1946 Report.
It is inevitable that in presenting a Report such as this a large volume
of statistics must be included for record purposes, but as far as possible
these have been collected in tabular form to facilitate reference for those
who are interested and avoidance by those who have not a statistical bent.
It is hoped that by judicious attention to, or disregard of, less important
detail the Report will prove interesting and helpful, particularly to those
Councillors who have only joined the Council during recent, years.
It will be found that during the war years the health of residents has
been remarkably good as judged by the generally accepted standards.
The Birth Rate has increased markedly, although 1945 saw a sudden
and probably temporary fall, coinciding with the absence overseas of
the maximum number of young men and women. The Infant Mortality
Rate has steadily decreased after a rise in 1941. The Maternal Mortality
Rate has remained at a low level, and in fact no maternal deaths at all
occurred in 1945.
It is true the Death Rate has remained steadily above the pre-war
level but this was to be expected with the absence of the younger sections
of the population. Unfortunately it is impossible to standardise this
and similar rates to avoid unfair comparisons of the relatively elderly
war-time population with its younger pre-war counterpart.
The history of infectious disease in the District during the last seven
years is a little confused by the inclusion of measles and whooping cough
among the notifiable diseases since 1939, and by the influence on the
statistics of the mental hospitals, where infectious disease has almost
inevitably increased. In the District as a whole, however, the position
has been extremely satisfactory, there having occurred only one outbreak
of note, namely, a wave of mild scarlet fever in 1943 which affected the
whole country. The degree of immunity of the population of the District
against diphtheria is believed to be much higher than in pre-war days,
thanks to the success of the Immunisation Scheme from 1941 onwards.
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