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8
linked with district Health Department and the local Council
is in a far better strategic position to increase the public
awareness of a problem, the magnitude of which, both as
regards morbity and mortality exceeds that of accidents on
the roads.
During 1957 one case of paralytic poliomyelitis was
notified in the Borough. The number of children resident
in the Borough who received a course of two injections
against this disease, under arrangements made by the Local
Health Authority, was 1,115. The extension of vaccination
to all children of school age and possibly, in due course,
to members of the public generally may, it is hoped, in years
to come, considerably reduce the ill-effects of this annual
visitation.
Although, broadly speaking, the incidence of pulmonary
tuberculosis is on the wane, there is evidence to show that
much still remains to be done in the abolition of this
incapacitating and killing disease. The chronic open case in
the community and the undiagnosed case, often in middleaged
and elderly people, remain two potent sources of infection.
The main spearheads in the attack against this disease
are the unremitting tracing of sources of infection, the protection
of contacts and young children by B.C.G. inoculation
and a more intensive search for new cases by means of mass
miniature radiography.
During the latter part of the year influenza of the Asian
type reached epidemic proportions in the Borough, this being
part of a world epidemic. Although widespread, the disease
did not reach the severity which had been anticipated and
most cases were of a relatively mild type, necessitating a
few days in bed followed by a short period of convalesence.
Much absenteeism resulted in factories and in schools from
this cause in the area. No deaths were recorded as due to
influenza during the year.
So much for these objective factors for which figures
are available, but this is by no means the whole story. There
are no statistics by which we can study the health of the
individual and of the community in the sense of happy and
successful living as integrated members of society which
is the essence of true health. It is, I think, true that, despite
the great advances in clinical medicine over the past 40
years and the operation of the National Health Service for
10 years, there has been no reduction in the total incidence
of disease although the pattern of disease has changed. The