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DEATHS
The number of deaths credited to Wood Green after the necessary
adjustments had been made for inward and outward transfers was
585, giving a crude death rate of 9.5 per 1,000 of population
and a corrected death rate of 9.6. The total number of deaths
for the previous year was 537, when the death rate was 10.5. Of
the total of 585 deaths no fewer than 324 occurred at ages over
65, while 104 deaths occurred at ages of 80 and 9 at ages over 90.
Apart from the fact that the major causes of death as shown
by the Registrar-General s return are still deaths from diseases
of the heart and circulation and lung cancer, I would comment on
two specific death rates.
The tuberculosis death rates forWood Green have not altered
a great deal over the past four years, the number of yearly deaths
varying from 7 in 1957 to 2 in 1956. In 1957, the death rate
from tuberculosis was 0,12 per thousand of the population, the
fourth highest rate in Middlesex. In 1956 the death rate from
tuberculosis was the second lowest in Middlesex (0.02), while in
1955 the death rate (0-11 per thousand population) was exactly the
average for the County In 1954 the Wood Green rate was somewhat
below the average In other words although the death rates from
tuberculosis in a district such as Wood Green might be expected
to be low, this is not always the case, The reasons are not difficult
to find. It must be quite obvious that persons suffering
from tuberculosis move into Wood Green from Inner London because
of the very fine amenities and the absence of much industrial
development The fact that a very few of these patients die
and I need scarcely say that the death rate from tuberculosis is
declining year by year - must never be taken to impiy that this
is a bad area so far as tuberculosis is concerned One must
consider above everything else the number of new cases which
are recorded in the Borough especially among what might be
described as the indigenous population The fact that our death
rates from tuberculosis are relatively high however does indicate
the urgent need for the adequate housing of all families
from which a case of tuberculosis has been reported. So far as
the tracing of contacts and the care of actual patients is concerned,
the work of our Chest Clinics is particularly important
In 1957. the death rate from cancer (2.2 per thousand population)
was the fourth highest in Middlesex. In 1956, the rate
for Wood Green was the third highest in the County in 1955 the
rate was the fourth highest in Middlesex while in 1954 the rate
was again the fourth highest in the County. In short, year after
year the number of deaths from cancer in Wood Green which
varied from 100 in 1954 to 123 in 1956 remained high when compared
with figures from other County districts. The reason is
again not far to seek. The population of Wood Green is weighted
in the over-sixty group and is becoming increasingly weighted as
the years go by. This means that more and more Wood Green
inhabitants are living to the age when cancer is a major killing
disease. Although one cannot describe any cause of death as
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