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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Wood Green, N. 22.
June, 1960.
To THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN and COUNCILLORS
of the BOROUGH OP WOOD GREEN.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present my Annual Report for 1959.
It is almost becoming a standard introduction to this Report
for me to say that the year under review was more or less uneventful.
At the risk of repetition, however,Imust once again state
that this was, in fact, the case. I hasten to add, of course,
that this does not mean that the Public Health Department was able
to go into a state of coma, or to rest on its oars. The same
amount of patient, unpublicised work has to be done year after
year if the fruits of the past are to be properly garnered and if
adequate safeguards are to be laid down for the future. This is
the aim towards which the Public Health Department continually
works.
To deal first of all with the incidence of infectious diseases,
1959 was a particularly happy year in this respect. A full report
on this subject will be found in the section which deals specifically
with infectious diseases. I will therefore leave any further
remarks until I have dealt with this particular problem.
The vital statistics for 1959 were satisfactory, although I
must once again enter a caveat against placing too much emphasis
on the vital statistics which apply to only one year and to a
population of approximately forty-eight and a half thousand.
None the less, the figures give rise for satisfaction, especially
when studied over a period of several years. The death rate was
12.4 compared with 11.3 recorded for 1958, while the birth rate
rose from 12.9 in 1958 to 14.2 in 1959. The birth rate was relatively
constant from 1955 to 1958, the only significant rise having
taken place last year. Once again, there were no deaths from
puerperal sepsis. Unfortunately, one case of maternal mortality
was recorded,but the cause of death was stated to be due to selfinduced
abortion. The infant mortality rate, i.e. the number of
infants who died during the first year of life per thousand live
births, was 20 5 as against 23.62 in 1958. These matters will,
however, be discussed in greater detail in the part of the Report
which deals with statistics and social conditions of the Area.
Housing still plays a very important part in the programme
of Public Health. Indeed, as has been so often said, there can
be few aspects of preventive medicine with which a Borough Council
such as Wood Green is more intimately concerned.
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