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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Friern Barnet.
Middlesex.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the Annual Report for
the year 1964. This will be my last annual report and the last
report for the Urban District of Friern Barnet. My work in
Friern Barnet commenced 33 years ago as Assistant Medical Officer
for Schools and Maternity & Child Welfare under Middlesex County
Council and it has been a great satisfaction to me to serve finally
in the capacity of Medical Officer of Health.
On an occasion such as this - in a sense a farewell
to the Urban District of Friern Barnet - one is irresistibly drawn
to look back over the years so far as the health records go, and
this takes us with certain gaps to the year 1884.
Over these 80 years the advances in knowledge and
understanding of infection, the saving of infant life and the
greatly increased life span are achievements which must have seemed
beyond the dreams of the Medical Officers of Health of these early
days. I have done a series of graphs to illustrate some of
these advances and, together with explanatory notes, they will be
found on pages 35, 36, & 37, at the end of this report.
To return to this year's report, although substantially
complete, a few items, e.g. the number of illegitimate births, etc.,
are not yet to hand from the Registrar General.
The outstanding feature of the report is the very
satisfactory drop in infant mortality. With only 4 infant deaths
the infant death rate per 1000 births fell from last year's figure
of 21.3 to the very low figure of 9.8.
The birth rate with 410 live births was 15.7 per 1000
population, slightly higher than last year's figure of l4.5. The
crude death rate was 11.0 compared with 12.1. Again there were no
maternal deaths, and it is a matter for great satisfaction that there
has been no such death in the past 17 years.
The number of infectious diseases notified during 1964
was 78 compared with 379 last year. Measles notifications fell
from 314 to 46 and dysentery from seven last year to one this year.
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