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TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS
OF THE BOROUGH OF FINCHLEY.
December, 1958.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my report for the year 1957. The
health of the community continues to be satisfactory. The infantile
mortality which indicates the deaths of children under one year of
age was 17.3 per thousand live births, which compares very favourably
with the national figure for England and Wales of 23 per thousand.
On analysing the causes of death in other age groups it is gratifying
to notice that there were no deaths in the school group (5 to 15
years). Coronary thrombosis is the main single cause of death which
predominates in the age groups above 45 years of age, and it may
be surprising to some to note that coronary thrombosis now shares
with malignant neoplasm the position of chief cause of death in the
25 to 45 age group.
Infectious diseases continue to decline, new cases of Tuberculosis
being the lowest ever recorded. With the exception of Poliomyelitis
none of the common notifiable infectious diseases was listed as a cause
of death, and it is anticipated that the increase in the number of
children being vaccinated against poliomyelitis will make it only a
matter of time before this disease is also brought under control. At
the beginning of October there was an outbreak of Influenza which
became widespread but was mild in type and in the majority of cases
lasted only a few days with a quick recovery. With the help of the
Colindale Public Health Laboratory the virus was typed and found
to be of Asian strain. The work of business and industry was seriously
hampered by the incapacity of a large number of people at the
same time—an example of this is shown in the fact that at the beginning
of October there were 60 cases of Influenza among the staff of
the Barnet Hospital Group. During the month that the epidemic
continued there were three deaths from Influenzal Pneumonia—two
being aged persons and one a child under three months of age.
During the year the Public Health Committee decided to introduce
a laundry service for incontinent aged persons. This was done
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