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effort and more money on maternity and child welfare work, and
that more and more must the importance of the ante-natal examination
of expectant mothers be taught if the deaths of infants in
the first month of life are to be reduced.
The infantile death-rate was not assisted by a small epidemic
of infantile diarrhoea which occurred in Romford Infirmary, and
which accounted for the deaths of five Ilford infants. Apart from
this there has been an increase in the total number of deaths from
diarrhcea in children under two years of age, from 6 in 1924 to 13
in 1925. It is to be hoped that this is not any indication that
there is likely to bd a return of this very fatal disease to infants in
anything like the epidemic form which it has shown in years
gone by.
Four women died in child birth or in consequence of child
birth during 1925, compared with only one in 1924. Two of the
deaths were possibly unavoidable. One, however, was due to
Puerperal Fever, and the other was due to what is generally
regarded as an avoidable cause of death.
Only one other case of Puerperal Fever was notified in the
district, and this woman, although desperately ill, made an
excellent recovery at the Isolation Hospital. The case which died
was nursed at home. As with other serious diseases, the earlier
that the patients can be received into a hospital where they can
obtain expert nursing, medical and possibly operative treatment,
the better the chance of recovery. It will not always be found
possible to obtain a complete and satisfactory recovery, as in the
above case, even whe i the patient is admitted into the hospital
in the early stage of the disease.
During the year the extensions to the Isolation Hospital,
consisting of a new Nurses' Home and an additional ward, were
completed after long delay.
The new Maternity Home was also completed and ready for
opening at the end of the year.
The Public Health Offices were, at the beginning of the year,
transferred from the very unsatisfactory accommodation which
they had in Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 8, Oakfield Road, to Valentines
Mansion.
The Bye-laws for fish frying and dealing in rags and bones
(which in 1923 were listed as "offensive trades were approved
by the Ministry of Health and became operative in March of last
year. The importance of these Bye-laws has already been
realised in dealing with one large rag and bone business which was
in existence in Ilford, and the buildings of which were destroyed