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4
Public Health Department,
White Hart Lane (old) School,
Wood Green, N.22.
5th May, 1952.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
of the Borough of Wood Green.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present to you my Annual Report as Medical Officer
of Health for the year 1951. This is the twenty-fourth report of
the kind which I have written during my official service in Wood
Green. It is also my last, and by the time it reaches your hands,
I shall have ceased to be your Medical Officer of Health.
In taking official leave of the Council, I wish to express my
gratitude for all the kindness, courtesy and support which have
been extended to me during my years of service. These have
very greatly contributed to the pleasure I have had in my work,
coming as they have done, not only from the members of the
Public Health Committee and its Chairman, Alderman Anderton,
with whom I have been closely associated in that office during
21 of the 24 years I have been in Wood Green, and on whose
support I have always been able to rely, but from the members of
the Council generally. I have been fortunate in serving Wood
Green during a period in which preventive medicine has been held
in high esteem throughout the country for what it has achieved
and many tributes have been paid to these achievements. Recently,
however, it has been pushed into the background, and the emphasis
today is all on the curative services. This phase will, I am
confident, pass and preventive medicine come into its own again.
I have been fortunate also in Wood Green, in the colleagues
with whom I have worked, and I wish to express my gratitude
to all the members of my staff, both those who are still in the
service of the Council and those transferred in 1948 to the service
of the Middlesex County Council. The most senior member of
my staff, Mr. G. C. Billing, Senior Sanitary Inspector, retired at
the end of 1951 after more than 40 years spent in the service of
the Council on the staff of the Public Health Department. At all
times a hard-working, capable and conscientious official, he has
been much missed by his colleagues, not least myself.
To all for whom and with whom I have worked during my
years in Wood Green, both Council and staff, I tender my thanks
for much kindness, consideration and help.
Your obedient servant,
MALCOLM MANSON,
Medical Officer of Health.