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PREFACE.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Merton and Morden Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Report for the year 1944.
As last year in the Annual Report 1 gave a comprehensive
account of all the services so as to bring it up to date as a
record, this year 1 propose to be content with a brief reference
only to the public health services, and any fuller information
with regard to its scope can readily be obtained by reference
to the 1943 Report.
The statistics in the Report must be examined with the
fact of the low estimate of total population in mind. The
Registrar General has given the population as 62,760, the
lowest recorded figure since 1936, attributable to the evacuation
consequent upon the flying bomb attacks. This naturally
results in an exaggeration of the various statistical rates
calculated on the basis of total population. This is perhaps
best illustrated by quoting the birth rate as an example. Last
year the birth rate was 17.4, this year it has gone up to 18.3.
but the total live births on which this rate is calculated have
only increased by 5; an increase which, if the estimated
population had not been so decreased, would have left the
birth rate unaltered.
The vital statistics for the year are very satisfactory.
The death rate is 10 compared with 11.6 for England and Wales
as a whole, and the birth rate is 18.3, while the corresponding
figure for England and Wales is 17.6.
Standing third among the causes of death is a newcomerother
violent causes. A visitor which we are thankful will not
re-appear—the factor responsible for upsetting the lives
of our residents as well as our statistics. In this unobstrusive
fashion is recorded the toll of life in our district taken by
V weapons—one of science's greatest achievements—in 1944.
Few of the sixty odd thousand residents of Merton and Morden
will regret the passing of 1944, the year now under review.
In the body of the Report will be found the actual
incidence of the various notifiable infectious diseases. It is a
remarkable thing that although the incidence of infectious
disease throughout the war years has been relatively high, the
mortality has been surprisingly low, and the diseases themselves
have, in general, run a mild course with an absence of
the widespread complications and sequelae which might have
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