London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Southall-Norwood 1934
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southall-Norwood]
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Cancer.
It will be seen by the table of causes of death (page 13) that in 1934
forty-nine cases (22 males, 27 females) died from cancer. The following table
shows the number of deaths from cancer (male and female), the estimated
population of the district, and the deaths from cancer per 1,000 population
since 1922.
Table No. 26.
| Year. | Male. | Female. | Total. | Estimated population. | Rate per 1,000 population. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1922 | 18 | 18 | 36 | 30,201 | 1.18 |
| 1923 | 21 | 14 | 35 | 31,300 | 1.11 |
| 1924 | 20 | 18 | 38 | 31,800 | 1.19 |
| 1925 | ? | ? | 40 | 32,220 | 1.24 |
| 1926 | 12 | 11 | 23 | 32,870 | 0.69 |
| 1927 | 13 | 13 | 20 | 33,480 | 0.77 |
| 1928 | 18 | 27 | 45 | 35,340 | 1.27 |
| 1929 | 12 | 10 | 22 | 35,370 | 0.62 |
| 1930 | 17 | 29 | 40 | 37,560 | 1.22 |
| 1931 | 20 | 28 | 48 | 39,280 | 1.22 |
| 1932 | 22 | 23 | 45 | 41,530 | 1.08 |
| 1933 | 23 | 28 | 51 | 44,780 | 1.13 |
| 1934 | 22 | 27 | 49 | 40,693 | 1.04 |
This total does not on the face of it show any significant increase in the
death rate from cancer such as is generally supposed to be occurring in the
country as a whole. In fact, bearing in mind the greater exactitude of diagnosis,
it would appear that there is no evidence of an increase in Southall. As
against this however it must be remembered that cancer is a disease of increasing
years and the population statistics do not show how far the ratio of
old persons to young persons alters in a growing population such as this.
There is a tendency for the new-comers to be relatively young and it is this
tendency which accounts for the fact (as is mentioned on page 12 of this report)
that the crude death rate must, for comparative purposes, be modified by a
factor called the comparability factor. All that can be said therefore with
regard to these figures is that there is no evidence of any significant increase
in the cancer mortality and this probably means that there is no significant
increase in the cancer incidence.
Special Infectious Diseases.
Smallpox.
No patients with smallpox or contacts of cases of smallpox were notified
to the Department during the year.
49