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7
The number of deaths due to respiratory disease, apart from
pulmonary tuberculosis was 86. Cancer was responsible for 113
deaths and tuberculosis 22.
Six deaths occurred from the principal zymotic diseases.
There were no deaths from enteric fever, smallpox, scarlet fever,
diphtheria or whooping cough, but two deaths from measles, and
four from diarrhcea in children under two years.
The Zymotic Death Rate was 0.11 per 1,000 of population.
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The number of deaths of infants under 12 months was 30,
which gives an Infantile Mortality Rate of 28.1 per 1,000 live births.
This rate was considerably better than that for the previous year
which was 34.4, and only a little higher than that for 1945, which
was 27.3, the lowest ever recorded in Wood Green. It compares
very favourably with that for the country as a whole, which was 41,
and with that of towns of comparable size which was 47.
Of the 30 infantile deaths no fewer than 10 died within 24
hours of birth, and 22 during the first month of life. If to these
22 neonatal deaths we add the 21 still-births which occurred during
the year we have a total loss of 43 infant lives either shortly before
or within a few weeks following birth. Of the 22 neonatal deaths,
9 were certified as premature, 3 were due to injury at birth and 5
to congenital conditions which are usually fatal. It is in the
direction of reducing the number of still-births which occur and
preventing so far as is* humanly possible, the loss of so many
premature babies that we must look for progress in the saving of
infant lives, and as I have said in previous reports, both these
objects are most likely of achievement by increased attention to the
health of the mother particularly in the late months of pregnancy.
MATERNAL MORTALITY.
Three deaths occurred from the complications of child-birth,
one of which was due to puerperal sepsis. The Maternal Mortality
Rate was 2.81 per 1,000 births. During the two previous years
there were no maternal deaths in the Borough.