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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 in respect of the
year 1954.
In my report of a year ago I briefly reviewed the many directions
in which progress in the health of the district had been made over the
previous twenty years, during which time it has been my privilege to
serve Carshalton as its Medical Officer of Health. I have, this year, the
further satisfaction of being able to report that that progress has been
well maintained.
There was a welcome rise in the birth rate, the highest since 1948,
which, together with a continued favourable death rate, helped to
maintain the rate of natural increase at something more than 5 per
thousand population, a consideration of some economic significance in
these days of an ageing population. This desirable state of affairs was
not, however, uniform throughout the district. The South West Ward,
exceptionally, had a birth rate of only 7.2, whereas its death rate was
10.1, the first time in the history of the district where there has been
a natural decrease in the population.
As stated, the crude death rate is again a low one, being 8.0 per
thousand population, compared with 11.3 for the country as a whole.
It is still significantly less when allowance has been made for the more
favourable constitution of the local population. The cancer death rate
fell by a fifth, but malignant disease of the lungs continued to take
a high toll among male sufferers from cancer.
Infant mortality fell again appreciably to the second lowest figure
on record, whilst we experienced yet another year free from any maternal
death.
The year was particularly satisfactory with regard to infectious
disease. Scarlet fever and whooping cough each affected less than half
the number of persons who contracted these infections in the year
before. Measles prevalence was the lowest for seven years. Erysipelas,
pneumonia and poliomyelitis were all less prevalent, whilst diphtheria,
enteric fever, and cerebro spinal fever were entirely absent. There
were no deaths from any of these diseases.
New cases of tuberculosis were fewer and the death rate from this
disease was only slightly higher than the record low of 1950. The
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