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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Friern Barnet,
Middlesex.
The Chairman and Members of the
Friern Barnet Urban District Council.
Madam Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the Annual Report
of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1955.
The period under review was uneventful. No major
epidemics or outbreaks of infectious diseases occurred;
indeed, I did not have to report any untoward happenings to
the Public Health Committee during the year.
The vital statistics make pleasing reading. The
birth rate 11.1 rose slightly from 9.6 in 1954, while the
death rate 9.1 (apart from deaths which occurred in Friern
Hospital - 240) remained more or less stationary. The stillbirth
rate 15.4 fell from 35.2 in 1954. Although the
totals which make up this rate were much too small to allow
of any significant conclusions being drawn, it is none the
less pleasing to note the drop. No deaths of women in
childbirth occurred during the year; indeed, only one
maternal death has been recorded in Friern Barnet within
the past nine years, during which time 27S8 births have
taken place. I need scarcely make mention of the fact
that this is vastly different from conditions which held
not so many years ago, and is an index of the various
factors which have been at work to produce this happy state.
These factors include stringent ante-natal control, firstclass
midwifery and the introduction of the new antibiotics.
The infantile mortality rate, i.e. the number of infants
who died under one year per thousand live births, was 25.2,
an increase over the figure for 1954 which was 21.9. When
one remebers that the total number of infants who died
was only eight, the variation in rate can be accorded its
proper significance. I feel that mention should also be
made of the fact that of the total of eight infants under
one year who died during 1955, no fewer than six died
during the first four weeks of life. This is known as
the neo-natal mortality, and is generally reckoned to
include those deaths which were virtually unpreventable.
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