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To the MAYOR, ALDERMEN and COUNCILLORS of the
BOROUGH OF SOUTHGATE.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In accordance with instructions received from
the Ministry of Health, this Report has been severely
curtailed, only information of an essential character
being included.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to gain
accurate information from a comparison of the vital
statistics relating to a series of years. Movements
of the population today are complex and bewildering, so
much so that any estimate of the population of an area
must of necessity be arbitrary. This means that vital
statistics no longer have the comparative value of
previous years, when it was quite easy to guage the
health of a district by comparing the statistics of one
year with its predecessors. Specific points brought
up by this statistical difficulty will be referred to
later in the Report.
Broadly speaking, we can be very satisfied
with the health of the community in 1941. The general
health picture is good, and gives no ground for pessimism
or alarm. Nutrition appears to be satisfactory,
the resistance of the individual to infectious disease
has been maintained at a very much higher level than
many of us expected, while the increased use being made
of health services is one of the most satisfactory
features of war-time public health.
The following points relating to the health
of the Borough would appear to merit special consideration:
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