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12
Diphtheria
No cases of diphtheria occurred during 1958.
Respiratory Diseases
The following table comprises Tottenham death rates arising from diseases
affecting the respiratory system with rates for the country as a whole. In common
with other districts in the Greater London area and other industrialised urban
areas, the death rates from certain respiratory diseases in Tottenham are higher
than the national average. Whilst this may arise from a complexity of reasons
there is no doubt that the urban environment is an important factor.
The biggest difference occurs in Lung Cancer and Bronchitis and to a lesser
extent Pneumonia shows higher rates.
In the large industrial areas many irritants find their way into the lungs
from the air polluted with smoke, and fumes. These irritants may cause inflammation
and thus weaken resistance to air borne bacterial infections or they
may react on the lung tissues to produce disease conditions. For this reason
every possible action must be taken to ensure that the air we breathe is kept as
clean and wholesome as possible.
The unceasing efforts in the latter part of the 19th century to secure a
clean water supply eventually eliminated many alimentary diseases and an
important public health aim must now be to secure that the air we breathe is
similarly protected.
Dr. McQuiston, the Physician in Charge at the Tottenham Chest Clinic,
states, "The winter of 1958, from the point of view of chest illness, was
certainly one of the worst that I have experienced during my twelve years in
Tottenham. We had a very busy time at the Clinic and there were lots of cases
who had respiratory illnesses complicating influenza, and also illnesses in the
bronchitic and emphysematous patients aggravated by smog. Our beds in the Inpatient
Unit at St. Ann s Hospital proved invaluable for the prompt treatment of
respiratory infections, and of course, in the many patients whose respiratory
function is already much curtailed by chronic pulmonary disease, it is vital to
treat acute infections at the earliest moment to avoid death from cor pulmonale.
In a later section of this report the Council's smoke control programme
shows that Tottenham is tackling local air pollution in an energetic manner.