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TO THE
MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS
OF THE
BOROUGH OF WOOD GREEN
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen
I have the honour to present the Annual Report for the year
1964.
This will be my last annual report and the last report for the
Borough of Wood Green. On an occasion such as this—in a sense
a farewell to the Borough of Wood Green as a Borough—one is
irresistably drawn to look back over the years so far as the health
records go and this takes us to 1889.
Over these 76 years the advance in knowledge and understanding
of infections, the saving of infant life and the greatly increased
life span are achievements which must have seemed beyond the
dreams of the Medical Officers of Health of these early days. I
have done a series of graphs to illustrate some of these advances
and together with explanatory notes they are to be found on pages
35 to 37 at the end of this report.
To return to this year's report, although substantially complete
a few items, e.g. number of illegitimate births, etc.. are not yet to
hand from the Registrar General.
In 1964 there was a slight regression in the birth rate which had
risen consistently each year from 1958 to 1963. This year, with
856 live births, the rate per 1,000 population was 18.4 against 19.0
last year. The crude death rate was 12.79 compared with 12.39 in
1963. The corrected death rate for 1964 cannot yet be estimated.
Again there were no maternal deaths, the last such death occurring
in 1959.
The infant mortality rate, i.e. the number of infants who died
during the first year of life per 1,000 live births, rose from 16.75 to
24.53. The chief factor in this higher death rate was the unusually
high number of infant deaths,-8-from bronchitis and pneumonia.
The number of infectious diseases notified was 426 compared
with 650 last year. Measles notifications were 311 against 429 and
dysentery notifications 14 against 78 in 1963.
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