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fever and the Intestinal Infectious diseases, apart from
[the typhoids, all call for careful vigilance. These are
(generalizations applicable to the country as a whole and
are not to be applied in particular to the Borough.
Post-war planning is very much to the fore these days,
land that considerable changes in the public health services
will be effected may bo taken for granted. For many years
past public health authorities have been mindful of shortcommings
and deficiencies in their services, and a study of
the annual reports issued during the last quarter of a
century will bear witness to the fact that there exists
an earnest desire for Improvement and expansion. Our aim
should be for an absolute and vigorous national health
policy in the future, so that for every citizen in every
part of the country there shall be available the maximum
benefits that the medical services can confer. All
hospitals, medical, health and ancillary services should
be more closely co-ordinated into one organisation able to
deal adequately and efficiently with the medical and health
needs of the people. Broadly we may visualise in the future
the establishment of a local Health Centre as the unit of
Public Health services organised and fully equipped to render
both preventive and curative services completely effective,
and linked in close association with hospital and other
institutional facilities. into this unit has to.be brought
those specialists in fields' other than medicine, the
sanitarian, the architect, the engineer, the teacher, the
Sociologist, the physical training expert, and all those who
make for the wellbeing of the individual and of the environment
in which he lives. Health cannot be obtained by the
practice of medicine alone. A full purse, and the power
and intelligence to enjoy leisure time are fundamentals in
the production of positive health.
Turning to the health statistics for Bromley for 1941 we
find a generally satisfactory state of affairs. The
following is a comparison of vital rates during the war years:
1941.
1940.
1939.
Population
Birth Rate
Stillbirth Rate
Death Rate
Maternal Mortality Rate
Infant Death Rate
50,430
13.3
28.1
15.1
4.68
28.8 .
56,580
13.2
33.2
12.5
1.28
22.6
60,000
13.9
44.8
9.7
3.45
28.9