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To the MAYOR, ALDERMEN and COUNCILLORS of the METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF SHOREDITCH.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have all tended in recent years to expect steady improvement in the
health of the Borough, and attributed this largely to the improved housing,
increased incomes and absence of real poverty among the residents. It well may
be that these very factors were the reason for some of the setbacks which
occurred in 1958, for it is an established fact that poliomyelitis (for example)
is a more severe disease in highly-developed countries than among the backward
races. Not only were there two polio deaths but these were very sudden - one
lieing within 3 days of the onset of the disease, and the other (a man of 33
years) within a week, thus showing that our power to fight this disease unaided
is very poor at any age. Luckily most of their child-contauts had been inoculated
earlier, so that a total of only ten cases were notified in the year. Without
that protection there might well have been a much wider spread despite all our
efforts at localising the outbreak.
The number of children born dead (stillbirths) jumped from 8 to 20 during
1958 for no apparent reason, and the illegitimate births increased from 48 to 64.
Also, for the first time since a self-induced abortion in 1951, we lost not merely
one mother but two from childbirth, despite every modern aid.
Although this is the total list of calamities for the year, while everything
else showed further improvement, it indicates that we cannot afford to relax our
efforts, especially when we see how the wrong use of modern advances such as
penicillin and D.D.T. has done harm in other directions.
It is therefore incumbent upon each one of us to see that good use is made
of all the protection available from immunisation and inoculation, because it is
too late to begin trying to use them after we have been actually in contact with
cases, whether of polio, diphtheria, or even whooping cough.
The routine vital statistics showed an increased number of births, decreased
deaths, an improvement in infant mortality rate so that Shoreditch is once more
on the right side of the average, a decrease in deaths from tuberculosis, cancer
of stomach, lung, and even a slight improvement in deaths from coronary disease.
Acoidental deaths were down to half the previous year's total so that it appears
as if the average resident is resisting the more normal hazards to hie life. On
the other hand, although 1958 was not an epidemic year for the "old-fashioned"
notifiable diseases,dysentery still attacked 120 people, which shows that our
propaganda (about handwashing before handling food, and after toilet)is not getting
driven home, even now, although this is such a simple way of avoiding an
uncomfortable disease. Fortunately the food shops are not as careless as the
home-dwellers, in this matter.
In the matter of the fight against infection, the Borough suffered a blow by
the enforced retirement of Doctor C.K. Cullen, who had reached the age limit after
a lifetime devoted to the very successful treatment of tuberculosis in the Borough"
He was replaced by Doctor W.F. Richards who we hope will uphold Doctor Cullen's
remarkable tradition.