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6
1946. The increase is probably in part due to the increased housing
accommodation provided during the past year and in part to
the increase in the birth rate during the past two years.
BIRTHS.
The number of live births registered during the year was
1,066, which corresponds to a Birth Rate of 20.3 per 1,000 of population.
This is an increase over the rate for 1946, which was 19.4,
and is the highest rate recorded in Wood Green since 1920. The
number of still-births was 21, and the Still-Birth Rate 19.3 per
1,000 births, an improvement on the previous year when the rate
was 27.6.
DEATHS.
The number of deaths credited to Wood Green after the
necessary adjustments had been made for inward and outward
transfers was 649. This gives a Death Rate of 12.4 per 1,000 of
population, the same rate as for 1946. Of the total of 649 deaths
no fewer than 426 or 65.6 per cent occurred at ages over 65. By
contrast the percentage of deaths of persons over 65 years of age
in Wood Green was in 1907, 24.7, and in 1927, 48.1. 119 deaths
occurred in 1947 at ages over 80 years, and 20 at ages over 90.
The individual causes of death are given in Table III in the
Appendix. It will be seen there that the chief cause of death is
heart disease which was responsible for no fewer than 191 deaths,
a very much larger number than that attributed to any other
cause. Other diseases of the circulatory system caused 22 deaths,
and intra-cranial vascular lesions 79 deaths, so that in all 292
deaths out of a total of 649 were attributed to diseases of the heart
and circulation. This very high proportion of deaths attributed to
diseases of the heart and circulation does not necessarily mean that
there is a serious increase of heart disease in the community. The
great majority of these deaths are of people in the later decades
of life, and as "heart failure" is the last act in all forms of
disease, weakness or disease of the heart muscle is apt to appear as
a cause of death in the majority of death certificates for elderly
people.