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MEDICAL OFFICER'S ANNUAL REPORT SHEET 4 OF DRAFT.
Recently the Council has acquired an additional open space in the
valley to the North of Friern Barnet Road part of the Bethune Estate,
which has been laid out as permanent allotments and playing fields.
The drainage works carried out in this area by direct labour under
the direction of the Engineer and Surveyor will tend to mitigate to
a great extent the cold fogs which up to the present have been a
source of discomfort to the inhabitants of the houses on the slope
of the valley with a northern aspect. The playing fields will be
of great benefit to the district. The playing of organised games by
children under proper supervision is not only good physically but
tends to promote discipline and to mould character in the direction
of sound citizenship.
Social Conditions.
The number of Inhabited houses at the 1921 Census was 2928 with 3543
separate families or occupiers. Friern Barnet is practically a
residential suburb with few factories and workshops. The 1921 census
showed for the first time the number of persons daily moving into and
out of the district, namely that 3920 persons sleep in the district
but work elsewhere and 923 persons work in the district but sleep
elsewhere. This daily migration to and fro of practically 5000
persons is dealt with by Train, Omnibus and tram the length of double
track of the latter being just over a mile. There does not appear
to be any particular disease associated with the social conditions
of the inhabitants of this district.
The rateable value of the District is increasing and for the year under
review is: for Poor Rate Purposes £114785 and for General District
purposes £112068.10,0 and the product of a 1d rate about £470.
There has not been any extensive call for Poor Law relief and judging
from the enquiries that I have received from the Almoners of the
various London Hospitals asking for particulars of the home conditions
of the various applicants for medical and surgical assistance, I should
say that there has not been any extraordinary call upon the London
Hospitals for gratuitous relief.
VITAL STATISTICS.
These I present in tabular form as far as practicable at the end of
the report, as a general rule the vital statistics of a district over
a short period are not to be trusted to give a true indication of the
social and health conditions for that particular district, but where
it is possible to get them over long periods such as 10 year intervals
they become a valuable index of the progress of a district in its
sanitary conditions. The deathrates often quoted as evidence of the
healthiness or otherwise of a district are very misleading and a
glaring instance of this occurred this year where this district was
advertised in a prominent evening paper as having a deathrate of
7 per 1000. Such a crude deathrate may exist, in fact it was
published in the Registrar General's Statistical Review but it means
nothing (it was obtained by overestimating the population) except that
if the population were stationary the average length of life would be
no less than 143 years. It is with a view to correcting these erroneous
deductions from published vital statistics that I have inserted in
this report a "Table of comparative deaths and death rates from 1891
onwards to the present date." In column 1 will be found the periods
under review, in column 2 the population on which the rates are
computed, up to 1921 these populations are computed from census
figures and are as near the truth as it is possible to obtain. In
column 3 will be found the recorded or transient deathrate influenced
by the age and sex distribution of the population of the district
itself, and in column 5 the standard deathrate. It is only this
latter rate that is to be used as a measure of the hygienic conditions
of the district because it is the deathrate that would be recorded
in the district if the age and sex distribution of the population