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Public Health Department,
Council Offices,
E???th.
To:-,
The Mayor, A1dermon, and Councillors of the Borough of Erith.
Mr• Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you the annual report on the
work of your Public Health D pertment for the year 1943, and again
it should be noted that it is an interim report and'confined mainly
to a statement of statistics.
That prevention is better than curo is an old adage but
perhaps the greatest handicap to the practice of preventive medicine
today is not that we do not know how to prevent many diseases - which
is still unfortunately true - but that the public does not take full
advantage of the knowledge we already have.
The age long function of the physician is to cure end relieve
the sick but with the air full of new ideas end new trends there is
one that must be kept constantly in front of us - to prevent disc.: so
and point the way to positive health, and cultivate the tendency to
make people or doctors health-minded rather than disease..minded.
During the last two years extensive efforts have been m... de
with regard to protecting against diphtheria all children of 9 months
of age to the present school leaving ago of 14 years. Or the 31st
December,1943, 85.81 percentage of the children under the age of
5 years and 78.53 percent-go of school children have had the course
of injections for this purpose. In. which way this tremendous
experiment will eventually alter this deadly disease is not quite
clear at the moment,but it is interesting to note that of thirteen
cases notified as diphtheria and admitted to the borough's
isolation hospital during 1943, only one case in fact as actually
diphtheria and he, probably s result of being immunised during
the preceding year was clinically of a mild type.
In all, sixteen notifications wore referred to the department
and while it was not necessary to notify five cases only two of the
remaining eleven notifications were officially cancelled. The
town is, therefore, credited with nine cases of diphtheria during
this twelve months although in. fact only two c ses were actally
suffering from the disease. Fortunately there is now a more
practical method by which notifies tiers can be chocked at more
frequent intervals.
During 1942 and 1943 four day nurseries were asked. for in
Erith by the Ministry of Labour and four have been provided. To
some reformers the ideal unit is the family, while others, probably
a much larger number would provide whole-time nurseries for all
children under 2 end nursery schools for all children from 2 to 5
years of age.
Social structure in the p.st has been largely built around
the family with its parental responsibility, but the happiness of
family life is not necessarily Joopardised if the mother is freed
from the cure of the children for _ few hours each day. The
benefit derived by the average child during those few daily hours
in the nursery may be surprising ranging from obvious improved
physique in a neglected child to the education of the parents
concerning cleanliness and such matters as the desirability of
washing before each meal or the use of the tooth brush. None.of
the day nurseries has a full complement of children or as yet is
working to c capacity.
/Again