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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 on the health of the
district for the year 1956.
The statistics contained within its pages are the yard-sticks by which
the public health is measured, and are in the main based upon the same
calculations as in former years. In many instances comparable figures for
earlier years are given by which to evaluate progress. Many of these indices
are for the year under review the best yet recorded in the district and for that
reason it is difficult to avoid the repetitive use of superlatives.
Whilst the birth rate is the lowest so far experienced, the death rate
still remains at a favourable level and thus provides a not unsatisfactory
natural increase.
There was again no maternal death. No such death has followed
child-birth in the last twelve years. Infant mortality fell appreciably and
was little higher than the record low figure for 1948. This almost represents
the irreducible minimum in the present state of medical knowledge, for the
reason that no less than ten out of the total of eleven infant deaths occurred
in the first week of life and were due to prematurity, congenital defects and
other conditions peculiar to infancy which with some justification have
been termed the "unavoidable causes of death." Much has yet to be learned
about the prevention of these antenatal conditions, which if existing at
birth make failure to survive largely inevitable.
An examination of the individual causes of death cannot fail again to
shew the increasing part played by cancer of the lungs. Here is scope for
preventive action since it cannot now be doubted that tobacco smoke and
atmospheric pollution must be reckoned among the responsible factors.
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