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and it is therefore satisfactory to record that in Stepney it has dropped
from 165 in 1901 to 18.66 this year.
The enormous decrease in the number of infectious diseases and in
deaths from these is also satisfactory. In 1936 there were 2,928 notifications
and 181 deaths; while in i960 there were 835 notifications and
no deaths. Tuberculosis notifications and deaths were 324 and 156
respectively in 1936, and 110 and 8 in i960.
Since 1936, and especially since the end of the war, both the
Borough Council and the London County Council have made great strides
with the clearance of slum property and the erection of new dwellings.
The number of dwellings in the Borough owned by the Borough Council and
by the London County Council in 1936 was 1,947 or 5 per cent of the total
at that time. By i960, this number had risen to 9>295 or 35 per cent of
the dwellings in the area. During the same period the number of occupied
underground rooms had been reduced from 6,000 to under 2,000. Overcrowded
families on the 1936 register numbered 7,632 and at the end of I960, 357
families were known to be overcrowded.
Since 1936 food hygiene in shops has greatly improved. Within
recent years many foods such as butter, lard, tea, sugar, rice, cereals,
porridge oats, raisins and currants are stocked in shops in the prepacked
state and sold retail in the original package. We no longer see such
foods exposed in the shops in open sacks anx boxes, nor the massive lumps
of butter sitting (with the cat) on the shop counter waiting to be hacked
and weighed in portions en the shop scales. Prepackaging and refrigeration
have helped not only to keep foods clean ana hygienic but also to ensure
their purity and uniformity of quality. The housewife is attracted by
the convenience and cleanliness of such products and now tends to prefer
potatoes, vegetables, chickens and other goods offered in the prepacked
state, even if they are a little more expensive.
* * *
RATES.
Death Rate: Number of deaths per annum per 1,000 population.
Still-birth Rate: Number of still-births per annum per 1,000
total live and still-births.
Live Birth Rate: Number of live births per annum per 1,000
population.
Infant Mortality Rate: Number of deaths per annum of infants
under one year of age per 1,000 live births.
Maternal Mortality Rate: Number of deaths per annum of women
ascribed to pregnancy, childbearing, abortion, etc.,
per 1,000 live and still-births.
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