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PREFACE
To the Chairman and Members of the
Merton & Morden Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wish to present the annual report for the year 1954.
1 should first of all like to pay tribute to Dr. A. W. Johns,
your Medical Officer of Health from April, 1940 until 31st
August, 1954, when his most unfortunate death occurred,
after a short illness, at the early age of 51. His death was a
great loss to the community. Dr. Johns was most conscientious
and devoted to his work, which he carried out with the
greatest zeal and ability. His sense of humour made him well
liked by his staff, by all his colleagues who serve the Council
and by his Medical Officer of Health colleagues of the County
Districts of Surrey.
I should like to report that in his last year of office the
health of the Urban District has as usual been extremely good,
and there have been no special outbreaks of infectious
disease.
Although the birth rate has declined to its lowest of 10.8,
or 11.2 when corrected to compare with the average age and
sex population of the country as a whole, the death rate and
infant mortality rate have both dropped to the lowest
recorded, as have deaths from tuberculosis. One maternal
death occurred giving a maternal mortality rate of 1.23 per
1,000 births.
Notifications of infectious disease dropped to a very low
level in 1954, that for scarlet fever constituting a low record
and for measles the lowest since 1939. Measles is apt to
occur in two-yearly waves however.
It is pleasing to record that there was only one case of
poliomyelitis and it was not of great severity but we hope
that a population lacking immunity is not being built up to
suffer attacks later on.
Most gratifying is the absence of diphtheria for the third
year in succession, the outstanding example where preventive
measures have practically eliminated a deadly disease.
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