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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 Annual Report for 1948.
It is a matter of gratification to me, as it must be to you, to
be able to record year after year that the vital statistics by which
the health of a population is measured as regards our own area
are considerably more favourable than the average for England
and Wales. If one studies the table of comparative statistics
on page 13 it will be seen that in every instance our mortality
figures are well below the average for the country as a whole.
As has been mentioned before, it is particularly gratifying that
this is true of those special figures which are regarded to some
extent as indicative of the environmental standards.
The death rate from enteritis and diarrhoea under two years
of age gives us a mortality less than a third of the national
average, and our infant mortality rate in Merton and Morden is
24.8 per thousand as compared with 34 per thousand for England
and Wales. Our maternal mortality rate this year is Nil, as it
was two years ago. On page 20 the maternal mortality rates for
the past 20 years are set out to afford comparison. Our birth
rate has fallen sharply from 17.86 last year to 14.45 this year,
and the number of live births has dropped from 1,345 last year
to 1,087 this year—a replacement of population loss of 258.
There were 572 deaths in the area and our death rate continues
at a relatively low level, 7.6 per thousand population, the
comparable figure for the country being 10.8. The analysis of
the diseases which are responsible for these 572 deaths will be
found on page 19 and it is perhaps of particular interest to
mention here that disease of the heart remains the biggest single
cause and that, although cancer continues to keep its position as
the second, the actual number of deaths from cancer has dropped
again this year to 110. Last year it was 118 and the previous
year it was 126. Tuberculosis claimed 35 deaths as against 30
last year; these deaths are further analysed and classified on
page 73. Measles alone of the infectious diseases reached
epidemic proportions and, as is mentioned elsewhere, presentday
measles is a mild disease. There were no cases of typhoid
or smallpox and over the year 8 cases of poliomyelitis, as compared
with 22 last year.
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