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5
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
To His Worship the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of
Harrow.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the Annual Report on the Health and Sanitary
Circumstances of the District for the year 1960.
Although the vital statistics still compare favourably with those of
the country as a whole, some of them were not so satisfactory as in
previous years. The infant mortality rate rose from a figure of 15.0 in
1959 to 18.2. It was not possible this year to record freedom from
maternal mortality. There was too an increase in the number of deaths
from tuberculosis from the exceptionally low figure of six in 1959. In
spite of these increases, the death rate as a whole at 9.4 was lower than
the 9-7 of the previous year. There were no notifications of poliomyelitis;
throughout the country as a whole, the incidence of this infection in 1960
was very light, a state of affairs probably largely due to the high proportion
of the susceptible population having been protected by active immunisation.
Influenza was not a public health problem in the country in 1960 and this
district at no time was seriously affected. During the year, 118 men died
from cancer of the lung. This number was an increase of twenty-seven
on the figure of ninety-one for 1959 which itself was twenty higher than
the 1958 figure. In a few years the number of deaths of men in this district
from this cause has almost doubled, and last year cancer of the lung was
responsible for one out of every nine deaths amongst males here. The
figures for women are much lower, but these too are rising. In the country
as a whole, each year sees an increase in the number of deaths from this
complaint.
The general pattern of the work of the Public Health Inspectors
supervised by the Chief Public Health Inspector Mr. S. N. King
followed that of recent years, there being these days fewer complaints
calling for visits and investigations. As always, housing conditions call
for much attention from the Inspectors. There has been in recent years a
marked diminution in complaints about housing conditions, reflecting
the improved state of houses and the reduction in the number of overcrowded
houses. When conditions calling for improvement are found,
whether at a house or at for instance, places where food is prepared or
Handled, the faults today are much more often relatively minor in
character. Again, in regard to food places, the activities of the Inspectors
are devoted less to taking steps to bring about structural changes in the
premises than to eradicate faulty techniques on the part of the food
handlers. This educational side of the work of the inspectors is one
which is assuming growing importance. Much of their time was devoted
t0 the inspections and visits to premises for the survey in connection
with the District's first smoke control area. This work was started in 1958.
reP°rt was submitted to the Minister in July, the Order was confirmed