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PREFACE
To the Chairman and Members of the
Carshaeton Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report on the health of
the district for the year 1952.
It has been my fortunate experience over the past twenty years to
be able to put before you records of the public health which, although
showing inevitable fluctuations, have indicated steady progress. The
report for 1952 is again in keeping with that trend.
Following the post-war peak in 1946 the birth rate fell steadily
for the next five years until last year when it made the first recovery,
rising to 12.7 per thousand population as compared with 12.3 in the
year before. This is 2.6 per thousand less than the rate for the country
as a whole.
The death rate is again a low one, due in some measure to the fact
that the district has a comparatively young population. However, when
allowance is made for this consideration which it is, mathematically, by
the Registrar General, the "comparable" death rate of the district is still
significantly less than that for England and Wales.
The infant death rate shows a slight improvement on the year
before and is very near the national rate. Once again there was no death
attributable to childbirth. If one excludes the single fatality due to
abortion, which was the subject of an inconclusive verdict at a Coroner's
Inquest, there has been no maternal death for a period of eight years.
Tuberculosis claimed many less victims than in the year before and
the mortality rate from this disease fell nearly to the record low figure
of 1950. There was, too, a further fall in the death rate from cancer, the
rate for this disease being the lowest for six years. Malignant disease of
the lungs was again responsible for a substantial proportion of the
cancer deaths, 15% of the total. The increased risks to road users are
reflected in the deaths due to traffic accidents which, at six, was the
highest since 1940.
The year was a very favourable one from the point of view of
infectious diseases. Considerable progress has been made in recent years,
by means of immunisation and the newly discovered antibiotics such
as penicillin and the sulpha drugs, in the prevention and treatment of
the common infections which we have known in the past, such as
diphtheria, meningitis, whooping cough, tuberculosis, pneumonia, to
mention but a few. These diseases, in the main, are caused by the larger
forms of organisms which are readily identifiable under the microscope.
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