London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Merton and Morden 1947
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Merton & Morden]
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figure which would be an acute disappointment. As is mentioned
before in dealing with relatively small numbers like this, we can
only get a reliable picture if we take them over a period of years.
Reference to Table V below enables us to do this and we
see that our figures are consistently better than those for the
country as a whole and indeed are very satisfactory.
TABLE V.
| Year | Death rate per thousand total births. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sepsis | Other causes | Total | |
| 1927 | — | 2.8 | 2.8 |
| 1928 | — | — | — |
| 1929 | 2.2 | — | 2.2 |
| 1930 | — | 2.2 | 2 1 |
| 1931 | 1.6 | 3.1 | 4.7 |
| 1932 | 5.1 | 2.5 | 7.6 |
| 1933 | 2.9 | 1.4 | 4.3 |
| 1934 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5.0 |
| 1935 | — | 2.6 | 2.6 |
| 1936 | 2.4 | — | 2.4 |
| 1937 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 2.4 |
| 1938 | 0.98 | 1.96 | 2.94 |
| 1939 | — | 3.93 | 3.93 |
| 1940 | 1.04 | — | 1.04 |
| 1941 | — | 2.3 | 2.3 |
| 1942 | 0.93 | 1.87 | 2.80 |
| 1943 | 0.85 | — | 0.85 |
| 1944 | — | 0.84 | 0.84 |
| 1945 | — | 0.97 | 0.97 |
| 1946 | — | — | — |
| 1947 | 0.73 | — | 0.73 |
INFANT MORTALITY.
In the past few years the causes of infant deaths have been
set cut in detail to give a proper appreciation of the factors
responsible. Having reduced this mortality from 130 to 40 per
thousand in the past 30 years, it may be felt we have arrived at
an irreducible minimum. So far as deaths attributed to lack of
infant care is concerned, this is probably to a great extent true,
but half of these deaths occur before the end of the first month
of life, in the so-called neonatal period and there has been
nothing like the same reduction in this group over the past 30
years that there has been in the other group.
There has been a growing realisation in recent years that the
reduction of these neonatal deaths can only be secured by better
ante-natal care and improved obstetric care during labour. The
obvious inference has been drawn that this can only be achieved
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