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BOROUGH OF BRENTFORD AND CHISWICK
Public Health Department,
Town Hall, Chiswick, W. 4.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Brentford and Chiswick.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the 27th Annual Report on the health and
sanitary circumstances of the population of the Borough of Brentford and Chiswick.
The health of the people continued to be good.
All the many sided activities of the work of the Public Health Department
are devoted to the single aim of obtaining a population which is so sound and
well-balanced in mind and body that resistance to illness is constant. There
can beno sensational or glamorous display of success in this work. The dramatic
moments come when epidemic disease breaks out and is subdued and controlled or
environmental sanitation breaks down and is restored without much damage, but
these are more the evidence of failure than of success in the work that is being
attempted, so that an uneventful year is a satisfying one, and I am happy to be
able to state that the year 1954 was uneventful.
Some slight evidence, however, of a general improvement in the total health
of the community can be gauged from the vital statistics, and the fact that in
1954, the Infectious Diseases notification rate and the rate of notifications
and deaths from tuberculosis all decreased, gives grounds for satisfaction.
There was, however, a slight rise in the Death Rate and there were four more
infant deaths than in 1953,
There were no notifications of diphtheria but it is rather disturbing to
note the fall in the Vaccination and Immunisation ratesin 1954, as Smallpox is
still a problem in many countries, and could be very easily brought into Britain,
while Diphtheria still exists in this country and there are still children who
die every year from this cause.
Poliomyelitis notifications were few, and only 3 cases were confirmed, one
of whom recovered completely, while the other two, though having some residual
paralysis, are making good progress, and may possibly be cured completely in time.
The drop in Tuberculosis notifications and deaths is a pleasing figure of
the statistics,, there seems little doubt that this disease is on the wane.
Although it is early yet to become too confident, the combined effects of improved
housing, reduction of overcrowding, prompt discovery by Mass X-ray and Tuberculin
Testing, B. C. G. vaccination and the new methods of drug treatment discovered in
the last decade, seem gradually to be having an effect upon the incidence and
spread of this infectious disease,, Fifty years ago in the two districts of
Brentford and Chiswick with a total population of 48,922 there were 80 deaths
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