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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Friern Barnet,
Middlesex.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present my Annual Report
for 1959.
It is almost becoming a standard
introduction to this Report for me to say that the
year under review was more or less uneventful. At
the risk of repetition, however, I must once again
state that this was, in fact, the case. I hasten
to add, of course, that this does not mean that the
Public Health Department was able to go into a state
of coma, or to rest on its oars. The same amount
of patient, unpublicised work has to be done year
after year if the fruits of the past are to be
properly garnered and if adequate safeguards are to be
laid down for the future. This is the aim towards
which the Public Health Department continually works.
To deal first of all with the incidence
of infectious disease, 1959 was a particularly happy
year in this respect. A full report on this subject
will be found in the section which deals specifically
with infectious diseases. I will therefore leave
any further remarks until I have dealt with this
particular problem.
The vital statistics for 1959 were
satisfactory, although I must once again enter a caveat
against placing too much emphasis on the vital statistics
which apply to only one year ahd to a population of
approximately twenty-nine thousand. None the less,
the figures give rise for satisfaction, especially
when studied over a period of several years. The
death rate, apart from those deaths which occurred in
Friern Hospital, fell slightly from 10.4 to 10.2.
The birth rate rose from 11.2 in 1958 to 13.4 in 1959.
In actual fact the birth rate was relatively constant
from 1955 to 1958, the only significant rise having
taken place last year. Once again, there were no
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