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5.
COUNTY BOROUGH OF EAST HAM
Public Health Department,
Town Hall Annexe,
East Ham, E. 0.
TO: THE WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR,
THE ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF
THE COUNTY BOROUOH OF EAST HAM.
Mr. Mayor, Ladles and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my reports for the two years 1956 and 1957 and to remark the
welcome recovery in the birth rate from the record low figure of 11.7 in 1956 to 12.5 in 1957.
It is hoped the birth rate will continue to rise in view of the overall decline in population which
stood at 120,873 in 1951, 114,400 in 1956, and has further declined to 112,700 in 1957.
It is gratifying also to report the fall in infant mortality from 22.9 in 1956 to 15.2 per
1,000 live births in 1957. The corresponding figures for England and Wales stand at 23.8 and 23.1
so that our low infant mortality, a record for East Ham, may well reflect a long step forward in
the maternity and paediatric services given to our people, or alternatively could be regarded as a
barometlc Index of the social and cultural uplift of family life.
Fewer children died under the age of 4 weeks (15 per annum in both years under review) and this
sharp decline in neo-natal mortality is probably the most pleasing fact to note in the analysis of
the vital statistics. However, of the 15 infants who in each year died at or within the four weeks
of birth, 8 succumbed from prematurity in 1956, and 6 in 1957, and we are little likely to see further
striking improvement in perinatal mortality figures until the problems of the causation of prematurity
are elucidated.
I have referred to this matter in my reports of 1953/1954 and followed up by urging strongly
the discontinuance of work for financial gain by expectant mothers after the 30th week of pregnancy.
It is some consolation to find that whereas in 1955 there were 25 perinatal deaths with 18 (72%)
dying of prematurity, in 1957 there were 15 perinatal deaths in which 6 (40%) were attributable to
this cause.

In many spheres of social life, women play a leading role in ordering and developing the march
of conduct in the young men in the community.
The smoking mother and smoking young girl are a challenge to young boys which can be answered
only in one way, to smoke even more assiduously to assert their manhood.
The male leaders in the family and the community are falling miserably in their duty to lead
the young away from the pernicious habit of smoking. The wonen who I believe set much of the standard
of social conduct, need not fall If they will bend their efforts to achieve that in which their
men folk have abjectly failed.
In the body of the report will be found some preliminary observations on the value of B. C. G.
vaccination given to children in the penultimate year of their school life. So encouraging are the
results of the B.C.G. trials conducted by the Medical Research Council in East Ham and elsewhere, that
it could be said a signal advance has been made in the preventive field in the fight against tuberculosis,
and the protection which can be afforded this vulnerable group of the young adult population
should spare many adolescents on the threshold of a business or professional career, the terror and
torment of tuberculosis.