View report page

6
Borough of Bromley.
Report of the Medical Officer of Health
for the year 1935.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors.
Mr. Mayor, Madam and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the Annual Report on the Health
of the Borough of Bromley during the year 1935. The
general arrangement of the Report is in accordance with
that of previous years and follows the requirements laid
down in Circular 1492 of the Ministry of Health.
The Report is divided into two main sections, the first
dealing with the services of the Health Committee and the
Maternity and Child Welfare Committee, and the second
that of the School Medical Sub-Committee. Whilst
separated for the purposes of report they are in practice
one co-ordinated service.
There is gradually evolving in the public thought a
desire for communal health as distinct from individual
health. As a consequence, and without our seeking, one
notes a greater tendency to use the services provided by
the State, not, in my view, because they can be obtained
cheaply, but genuinely due to the seeking of the
knowledge of health rather than the treatment of illhealth.
A gullible section of the public still resorts to an
excessive use of patent medicines. There is, too, a tendency
to criticise the results of these health services because
nursing homes, hospitals and doctors all appear to be
increasingly busy. These critics forget that biological
decay is a law of Nature, that man must suffer illness with
an increasing mean age at death. They forget, too, that the
various Death Rates are being reduced, that preventable
illnesses are being controlled and minimised, and that the
environment is an increasingly healthy one. To take one
service alone, the Maternity and Child Welfare; thirty