London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Ilford 1962

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ilford]

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148
of the borough and are well known to our staff as producing the highest
number of "dirty heads". Surprisingly A shows up slightly better than B
and on the whole the figures are lower than would have been expected by
those of the staff who have long been connected with this work. The
records of the war years are incomplete, but the numbers for 1944 and
1945 reflect the relapse expected compared with the immediate prewar
years. From about 1948 onward there is a gradual drop in the number of
cases; this is due partly to a general improvement in standards among the
school population, but largely to the efforts of the school nurses who now
conduct regular hygiene inspections.

In spite of this there remains hard core of bad cases whose names crop up again and again.

Year% A% B
19254.4
19361.35.5
19381.73.0
19445.47.7
19453.19.1
19610.70.09
19620.81.5

Health Education in Schools.- Dr. D. J. Gordon-Smith and Dr. G. B.
Taylor, School Medical Officers, have been carrying out Health Education
in Schools and the following reports will be of interest:-
Smoking and Health
Dr. G. B. Taylor reports as follows:-
"We have been carrying out a health education programme in
the llford schools over the past two years. The essence of the programme
has been two-phased.
In the first phase we felt that we should have the co-operation
of the Borough Education Officer and the Head Teachers and accordingly
a meeting was arranged at which over 40 Head Teachers
attended. I gave an illustrated lecture on dust disease and different
forms of cancer, and the X-rays I showed were those of patients I
had known over the past ten years who had been suffering fr°m
different forms of dust disease. These X-rays were followed by
slides bearing the main pronouncements of the survey carried out by
Professors Doll and Hill over the past few years.