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To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Erith
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report for
the year 1960 which has been prepared on the lines set out
in Circular 1/61 of the Ministry of Health.
The Registrar-General's estimate of the mid-year population
is 45,780 (45,700 in 1959).
The vital statistics supplied ant.ually by the General
Register Office and dealt with below indicate that, broadly
speaking, the health of the Borough was well maintained.
The standardised death rate for 1960 was 11.63 per th thousand
of the home population (11.8 in 1959) compared with 11.5
per thousand for England and Wales. The standardised birth
rate was 15.73 per thousand estimated home population
(15.08 in 1959) compared with a rate of 17.1 per thousand
for the country as a whole. 14 infants died during the first
year of life giving an infant mortality rate of 19.44 per
thousand live births (13.06 in 1959) compared with 219 per
thousand in England and Wales. Ail but four of the infantile
deaths were due to congenital abnormalities and prematurity
over which there is little control at present.
For the second successive year there was no maternal
death associated with childbirth. Bearing in mind that during
this period there were 1.409 total births in the area, it may
be said that the result reflects the efficiency of the antenatal
and obstetrical services as well as the greater degree of control
over puerperal infections made possible by the use of the
antibiotics and chemo-therapeutic substances.
In regard to the infectious diseases, it is pleasing to
report that, for the eleventh year in succession, there has
been no case of diphtheria in the Borough. It is, nevertheless,
a duty that the public should be constantly reminded of the
possible return of this disease should the level of immunisation
fall to a sufficiently low level. Already there have been
signs of a recrudescence of the disease in various pjrts ot
the country and, while there were no deaths from thic cause
in England and Wales during 1959, there were two deaths m