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10
PREFACE.
To the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich.
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,
I herewith present my Tenth Annual Report on the Health
of the Borough, including the Nineteenth Annual Report on
the Health of Plumstead.
The general health conditions in 1910 were decidedly satisfactory,
and the general death-rate reached the lowest point
recorded. The infantile death-rate, however, did not fall
so low as in 1909. This is noteworthy in view of the fact
that in England and Wales, in London, and in the neighbouring
Boroughs, the infantile death-rate was lower than
ever recorded previously.
From a historical point of view the year was chiefly
characterised by your determination to close the Infants'
Milk Depot, which was started in 1906 with a view to
diminishing infant mortality. By this step you effected a
small financial economy.
Although there has on the whole been in recent years a
very satisfactory diminution In the death-rate of infants,
there is no doubt that the number of deaths of infants is
still very greatly in excess of what it should be, and' the
most satisfactory results which have followed the measures
taken in "this and other Boroughs for reducing infant mortality
show clearly that it is perfectly practicable to very
much further diminish this waste of life. I have repeatedly