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7
Preface
Phone:— Public Health Offices,
VALentine 3401 Ilford.
July, 1959.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of Ilford.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
1 submit herewith the Annual Report of the Health Services for the
year 1958.
In addition to my preface, various officers have been asked to make
their own reports, as I consider it helpful to have individual views expressed.
The table of contents will indicate the authors concerned. Perhaps the most
important, as it deals with a topic the general public knows little about,
is the contribution by Dr. H. M. S. Davidson, until recently Consultant
Psychiatrist at our Child Guidance Clinic. Dr. Davidson is now Medical
Director of the London Child Guidance Training Centre, and the contribution
describes the objects and activities of a progressive Child Guidance
Clinic. Miss Oliver, Superintendent Health Visitor, makes her debut as a
contributor and Miss Copping, the Welfare Worker for the Aged, has
written, with a pungent pen, what I can only call, as I did last year, a
"forthright" report. Annual reports of Medical Officers of Health have
a tendency to be dull, repetitive, and self-congratulatory. My endeavour in
my own preface is neither to anaesthetise with statistics nor make this
important document a chatty competitor with the women's magazines. If
the unfortunate anonymous medical officer in the Ministry of Health who
has to read the hundreds of reports produced by Medical Officers of Health
each year remembers this one with a degree of respect, I feel I will have
achieved some success.
Births and Deaths.
Some statistics, both pleasant and unpleasant, must, however, be given.
On the credit side is the drop in the number of deaths from 2,164 to 1,985,
and the adjusted death rate from 11.33 to 10.76. Deaths from cancer
generally were 369 as compared with 392 the year previously. Cancer of
the lungs showed a drop to 88 from 102 the previous year. However, this
must not detract from the warning against heavy cigarette smoking and
the pollution of the atmosphere.
The Infant Mortality Rate of 16.6 deaths per 1,000 births is an improvement
on the previous year's rate of 17.12, and it is difficult to conceive that
this extraordinarily low rate can be reduced much further. (Even 20 years
ago we were congratulating ourselves on a figure of 36.7.)
There were no maternal deaths, and no deaths from measles, whooping
cough, infantile diarrhoea, scarlet fever, enteric, diphtheria, poliomyelitis
or meningococcal infection. Deaths from suicide were 20, nearly double,
as last year, those from tuberculosis (11).
Infectious Disease.
There was no notable outbreak, apart from the usual epidemic of
measles towards the end of the year. There were only 3 cases of poliomyelitis:
immunisation against this disease proceeded satisfactorily in the
under 15 age group and very poorly in the 15-25 group until the sudden
flood which we, in common with the rest of the country, experienced this
year after the death of a well-known footballer.