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3
PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
TOWN HALL, HACKNEY, E. 8.
September, 1956
To His Worship the Mayor and to the Aldermen and
Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have pleasure in submitting my annual report on the health and sanitary
circumstances of the Borough for the year 1955.
This is the fourth Report which it has been my privilege to present and it
is in fact the hundredth in the series of health reports submitted to the
Hackney Local Authority. The first Medical Officer of Health was appointed
one hundred years ago under the Metropolis Management Act of 1855.
Statistics. The mid-year population of the Borough as estimated by the
Registrar General was 167,200 persons; the population as enumerated at the
census in 1951 was 171,342, and 215,333 at the census of 1931. Deaths from
all causes totalled 1,743 as opposed to 1,715 in the previous year. The crude
death rate per 1,000 population was 10.42 but the application of the "area
comparability factor" of 1.05 gives a rate of 10.94. The total number of live
births was 2,329, giving a birth rate of 13.93 per thousand of the population
or a rate of 12.68 after applying the "area comparability factor" of 0.91
The total number of deaths of infants under one year was 54, an infantile
mortality rate of 23.18 per thousand live births as compared with rates of 23,2
for the County of London and 24.9 for England and Wales; the rate for the
country as a whole was 0.5 per thousand below the previous year and was in fact
the lowest ever recorded. Deaths of women from causes associated with pregnancy
or childbirth were four as compared with two in the previous year: one
notes with regret that all these four deaths could well be regarded as prevent
able. Motor vehicle accidents resulted in thirteen persons losing their lives
and it is interesting to note that the only death in this group in persons
under the age of 50 was that of a boy aged 17 years. Deaths from all other
types of accidents numbered twenty-six, and four of these were in children.
Accidents in the home accounted for ten deaths, eight of which were in persons
aged 70 and over. Deaths from malignant disease in all parts of the body were
368, whilst malignant disease of the lung and bronchus claimed seventy-five victims,
eleven fewer than the previous year. The death rate from cancer of the
lung and bronchus was 0.45 per thousand of the population in Hackney, as com
pared with rates of 0.57 for the County of London and 0.39 for England and Wales
Infectious disease. Notifications of infectious disease to the number of
3,293 were received and of that total 2,141 related to measles, 447 to dysentery,
295 to whooping cough, 90 to puerperal pyrexia, and 81 to scarlet fever.
The decline in the incidence and severity of scarlet fever continues. The
incidence of sonne dysentery was again fairly widespread; cases occurred
sporadically for the most part but reference is made in the infectious diseases
section to a large outbreak associated with a primary school. Since the year
1949, when there were thirty-eight cases, poliomyelitis has not seriously
affected Hackney but in the year under review there were thirty-five cases, of
which twenty were of the paralytic type and fifteen non-paralytic. The cases
were sporadic in onset and distribution and in only one instance, when two
members of a family were affected, could any connection between the sufferers
be discovered The two cases of acute infective encephalitis and four cases
of meningococcal infection made satisfactory recoveries. Details of the acute
explosive outbreak of paratyphoid fever which occurred in the autumn are given