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8
PREFACE.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit the Twenty-ninth Annual
Report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of
Woolwich. It is an ordinary report as the special five-yearly
survey report is not due until next year.
The outstanding feature of the year was the passing of
the Local Government Act of 1929, which will probably have
a greater influence on the health activities of local authorities
than any other Act passed in the last fifty years. The Act
has placed considerable additional burdens on the London
County Council, and the future administration of these duties
appears to be so gigantic a task that the success of the health
administration of London at any rate will probably depend
upon the extent to which that body will exercise its statutory
powers of delegating and transferring those functions to the
Metropolitan Borough Councils.
Statistics.
In the early months of the year the weather was abnormally
cold and raw, resulting in a large increase in the incidence
of cardiac and respiratory diseases, and of Influenza, a set
of circumstances which re-acted very unfavourably on the
young and on the aged. In consequence the death rates were
higher. The general death rate was 12.6, and the infantile
mortality rate 62, compared with 11.0 and 50, respectively,
in 1928. The birth rate was 16 3, compared with 16.1 in
the previous year.