View report page

PREFACE
To the Chairman and Members of the
Carshalton Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report for the year 1947.
The year under review was the last complete year during which
the Council administered several health services, notably Maternity
and Child Welfare, which have since passed to the control of the County
Council. Future reports will thereby be less voluminous and will deal
with a restricted range of subjects, being mainly the health services
for which the District Council remains responsible. It is, therefore,
with no little satisfaction that I am able to present to you a very
satisfactory record of the operation of your health services which is
not the least gratifying in its account of those services which you have
since relinquished.
As measured by its vital statistics, the health of the district maintained
the high standard to which we have been accustomed. The
crude death rate at 7.8 per thousand population is again well below
the national mortality. Infant mortality is the second lowest in our
experience and is little more than half that for England and Wales.
Maternal mortality, for the third year in succession, was non-existent.
Among the causes of death, those associated with the degenerative
changes due to advancing years figured most prominently, and the
prominence of cancer mortality is to a certain extent the result of the
general increase in longevity since this is primarily a disease of middle
and old age. Tuberculosis was less fatal than for twenty years, although
the recorded incidence of this disease is higher, in great part as a result
of better ascertainment.
The otherwise very favourable position with regard to infectious
disease was marred by the wave of infantile paralysis which swept the
country in the summer and autumn. Locally, it gave rise to fifteen
cases, five of which proved fatal. Apart from this unusual visitation,
prevalence of the common infectious diseases was very satisfactory.
For the first time there was no case of diphtheria among the resident
population, although four cases were notified from Queen Mary's
Hospital.
3