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21
COUNTY BOROUGH OF CROYDON.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
AND
SCHOOL MEDICAL OFFICER
For the Year 1948.
S. L. WRIGHT, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.H.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Health Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the 49th Annual Report on the
health of the people of Croydon and the relevant services of the
Corporation for the year ending December 31st, 1948. During
the greater part of this period, Dr. Holden was your Medical
Officer of Health and, consequently, I can add little contemporary
personal observation to the facts set out in this statistical review.
It has been said that the Annual Report of a Medical Officer
of Health should be seen but not read. It is true that such reports
are composed mainly of comparative tables of deaths, diseases,
epidemics and similar data, essential for reference but most
tedious for sustained reading. Yet the report which I am able
to present shows no mean achievements. It is noteworthy that
in 1848 was passed the first Public Health Act, so that 1948, a
year memorable in its own right in the history of social legislation,
marks also the centenary of this first Act. In 1848, the
parish of Croydon had an estimated population of 19,380 persons.
Its crude death-rate was 28.2 per thousand of the population. Of
the 546 deaths recorded, 42 were ascribed to "Fever" (probably
typhoid and typhus), 31 to Smallpox, 26 to "Hooping Cough,"