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CRO42
CROYDON
To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my thirteenth Annual Report
being the forty-first of the series, dealing with work of the Public Health
Department, My report as School Medical Officer to the Education Committee
is incorporated.
As last year, my report has been much curtailed because of the
necessity to economise. The usual full statistical details have been
compiled and they will be filed in order to secure continuity of the records.
From August until the end of the year Croydon experienced a series
of air-raids which caused considerable material damage and loss of life; they
did not however, dislocate the work of the department except for a short period
when the maternity wards at Mayday Hospital were badly damaged and had to be
evacuated for a tine for repairs. Arrangements were made for the patients
and also for expectant mothers who had booked bads to be accomodated in two
large private Nursing Homes which very efficiently came to our help. In all
Mayday Hospital has received damage on three separate occasions, and one
block additional to the Maternity Block has been out of action from October
until the end of the year, reducing its capacity by 96 beds.
The vital statistics for the year 1940 showed a birth rate of 15,4
per 1000 of the estimated population, an increase of 1,4 per 1000 over 1939;
and a death rate of 15,6 per 1000 also an increase of 4,6 per 1000 over 1939;
owing to the outward flow of population from Croydon after the air-raids
commenced, the vital statistics have been based upon a population of 199,800
as against the peace time computation of 233,115, this figure is only approximate,
Maternal mortality remained low at 1,65 per 1000 total live and still births,
and the Infantile Mortality of 39 was only 1 per 1000 live births higher than
that in 1939, which in its turn was the lowest rate yet recorded for the Borough,
The incidence of notifiable infectious diseases remained low, and
the Borough Hospital had another slack year. There was, however, an increase
in deaths from diseases of the Respiratory System, including Tuberculosis, and
a considerable increase in deaths specifically ascribed to Pneumonia, There
was a slight increase in Cancer deaths. On the whole, therefore, the year has
not shown, so far as statistics go, any noticeable decline in the health of the
Croydon population, but it should be recollected that the vital statistics of
an annual report such as this deal only with deaths, or the incidence of
recognisable disease. The incidence of ill health cannot, with the materials
available, be gauged with any accuracy; deductions can be made to a limited
extent from death rates. The causes of death during 1940 reflect the severity
of the winter, and possibly the practise of sleeping in air-raid shelters under
artificial and not always healthy conditions, in the increase of deaths from
respiratory diseases. The increase in skin diseases, notably Scabies is also
due in all probability to shelter life. The effects of chronic undernutrition
do not show themselves rapidly but rather by a slow undermining of the
constitutional resistance to disease. This was very clearly illustrated by
the pandemic of influenza in 1919, Consequently it would be premature and
unwise to make any dogmatic statement that tho health, of the Community shows
no deterioration due to war conditions. Whatever the bald figures of statistics
reveal it must be conceded that the artificial and unsettled conditions
inseparable from a war time economy must have some detrimental effect. It is
the duty of the Public Health Department to endeavour to keep the unfavourable
results as low as possible, and by action and advice, to help the people to
overcome the environmental and nutritional difficulties by which they are beset.
Some slight rearrangement has been made in the section of the
report as contrasted with 1939, but otherwise the sections remain the same.
Comments upon statistics have been cut down drastically and for tables which
are self-explanatory, have been omitted altogether.