View report page

PREFACE.
Public Health Offices,
Ilford,
May, 1932.
To His Worship the Mayor, the Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of ll-ford.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I herewith submit, the Annual Report required by the Ministry
of Health and the Board of Education.
The statistical figures in the Report for 1930 were based on
the Registrar-General's estimate for 1929; that is, 116,200. The
Census taken in April, 1931, showed the population on that date
to be 131,016, and the Registrar-General has now issued an estimate
for the mid-year 1930 of 125,000. The statistical figures
for 1930 have therefore been adjusted in this report. I have
pointed out on several occasions that the estimate of the population
must be considerably below the actual figure, and this has been
borne our by the result, of the Census.
It will be observed that, there has been a rise in the death
rate from 8.1 in 1930 to 9.3 in 1931. The death rate is still low,
but in view of the continual ingress into the district of a young
population, this is not necessarily an index of the health of a
district such as Jlford.
The infant mortality rate, which reached the low figure last
year of 33, has risen this year- to 55.6, the highest infant mortality
rate in Ilford since the year 1919, when it. reached the figure of 61.
There has been a marked decline in the incidence of most
infectious diseases. There has. been an increase in (he deaths,
however, from pneumonia, which has not until recently been
generally recognised as an infectious disease. The satisfactory
results which have followed the new serum treatment of this disease
at the Isolation Hospital emphasises how important it is that acute
pneumonia should receive the same isolation hospital accommodation
for its treatment as do other infectious diseases which have
less killing power.
In this connection it will be noted that cerebro-spinal fever
has again made its appearance. The only three cases in the
district which recovered (out of ten cases) were treated at the Ilford
Isolation Hospital.