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PREFACE.
Public Health Offices,
Ilford.
March, 1926.
To the Chairman and Members
of the Ilford Urban District Council.
Madam and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present herewith the Annual Report .
required by the Ministry of Health and1 Board of Education. This
is the seventh Annual Report which I have prepared, and is the
twenty-sixth report which has been presented for this district.
The Ministry of Health require that the Annual Report for 1925
should be in the nature of a survey report, and therefore of a
fuller character than those of preceding years, it being intended
that quinquennially such a report should be prepared by the
Medical Officer of Health. In particular the Ministry ask that
the report should " deal comprehensively (a) with the measure of
progress during the preceding five years in the improvement of
Public Health; (b) the extent and character of the changes made
during that period in the Public Health services of the area; and
(c) any further action of importance in the organisation or development
of Public Health services contemplated by the Local
Authority or considered desirable by the Medical Officer of
Health.'"'
As far as the vital statistics for the year 1925 are concerned, the
most satisfactory feature is the low incidence of diphtheria in this
district. In the year 1900, for which the first Health Report was
issued, the estimated population was 43,701. In that year 70
cases of diphtheria were notified and there were four deaths.
In the year 1925, with an estimated population of 93,590,
there were only 56 cases of diphtheria notified, with only two
deaths, one of the deaths not being confirmed as a case of diphtheria
by bacteriological examination. The death-rate from
diphtheria in Ilford was less than one-fifth of that in London. It
is obvious that we are in the trough of a wave of depression as
far as the incidence of diphtheria in this district is concerned,
and also as regards the mildness of the disease. In any future
year, with the appearance of that very fatal type of diphtheria
known as hsemorrhagic, we may anticipate a very different record
of the number of deaths from the disease. For the first time in
its history, no death from diphtheria occurred at the Isolation
Hospital. This result is not simply due to the mildness of the
disease, but much of it may be attributed to the excellent work
of the medical practitioners of the district and the way in which