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VI. PREVALENCE OF AND CONTROL OVER INFECTIOUS
AND OTHER DISEASES
Weather Conditions.
January was mainly dry and sunny, and had sleet and snow on eight
days. February was also sunny, but wet, with snow on four days.
March was a dull month, rainy but not cold.
April was sunny and very dry; May was warm with average sunshine
and some rain, while June was sunny and dry. April, May and June
were in fact the best months of the year, but from then onwards the
weather deteriorated so that we had a wet summer. July and August
were wet and cool and September very wet. November was sunny, but wet.
December was an average month, with Christmas Eve cloudy and damp and
Christmas Day mild and sunny in the afternoon. Boxing Day was wet and
windy but mild.
The Easter Bank Holiday week-end was cool and wet on Good Friday
and Saturday, and mainly fine and sunny on Sunday and Monday. Whitsun
week-end was warm and sunny on Saturday and Sunday with temperatures of
70-80°, but Whit-Monday was cloudy, with rain. August Bank Holiday
week-end was cloudy and cool on Saturday, Sunday was fine and sunny
and Monday cloudy, with thundery showers.
The year was by no means as fine a one as 1959, but whilst it was
often wet and dull there was no really cold month and the winter was
not severe. We escaped with no fuel crisis and no painful experience
of frozen pipes and burst roof tanks. On the whole the year was kind
to the aged, who suffer in extreme cold, and free from those infections
sometimes prevalent in hot summers.
Notifications.
The number of notified cases of infectious diseases (corrected for
revised diagnosis and duplicate notifications) occurring during the year
was 835, the lowest ever recorded; the number last year was 1,998.
Table 17 on page 72 shows cases notified, together with comparative
figures over the past ten years. A list of diseases notifiable in the
County of London is shown in Table 20 on page 74.
Cancer.
The number of deaths from cancer of residents of the Borough
occurring during the year was 213 (29 less than last year). Deaths
from lung cancer numbered 53, which is 24 less than in 1959.
The death rate from cancer of the lung in men increased to 855
per million population for England and Wales, or 36 per cent of all
cancer deaths; whilst the number of lung cancer deaths expressed as
percentage of deaths due to all forms of cancer in women was 7 per cent.
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