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5
with tuberculosis. Unless prevention of disease becomes once
again an active national policy your hospital beds and doctors'
surgeries will be filled with patients lost to the nation's productive
effort. Unless the public respond to all efforts of
prevention the cost of treatment will continue to be an ever
increasing burden.
A prominent activity during the year was the clean food
exhibition and film show which was a success, thanks to the
co-operation of the Council and the food trade. The enthusiasm
with which this was greeted was most gratifying and augurs well
for the future, for without the co-operation which is so willingly
forthcoming in Orpington, all our efforts towards clean food
would be very largely nullified and frustrated. Under the
heading of health education will be found a full report on this
successful venture.
The most striking feature concerning the infectious diseases
was the very steep rise in the incidence of both measles and
whooping cough—measles notifications increasing from two
hundred and fifty in 1950 to one thousand six hundred and sixtythree
in 1951, and whooping cough rising in the same period
from two hundred and ninety-seven to five hundred and fifty.
Although these figures look alarming on paper, they are only in
conformity with the country as a whole and rather typical of the
rise and fall of these diseases over a period of years. There were
no deaths from these diseases during 1951.
The figures for infantile paralysis shew little change but the
notifications of pneumonia rose from forty-four to one hundred
and forty-three which is a rise to be expected in a year in which
influenza was prevalent.
Another disease to show a big rise in notification was
dysentery which rose from twenty-nine to ninety-three ; this,
again, is comparable with the position in the country generally
but, fortunately, the organism responsible in the majority of
cases only gives rise to a comparatively mild form of the illness.
When one considers the amount of infectious disease still
occurring, it may well be that the time is approaching where the
Local Authority will have to consider the appointment of an
infectious disease nurse or nurses to visit and advise where
necessary.
None of the Vital Statistics show any significant variation
from the previous year, but it is of some interest to note that
forty-five per cent, of the total deaths in the district in 1951