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4
Public Health Department,
43, White Horse Street, Stepney, London, E.l.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.
April, 1934.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you my first annual report on the vital
statistics and sanitary conditions of the Borough of Stepney for the year 1933.
This report is really in the nature of a dual one, for my predecessor, Dr.
Browne, was in office until the end of June.
I would like once again to thank you most sincerely for the very great
honour you have done me in appointing me your Medical Officer of Health and
I would like to take this opportunity of assuring you that it will be my constant
endeavour to prove myself worthy of the confidence you have thus placed in me.
I would like also to take this opportunity of saying how happy I was
working under the administration of Dr. Browne and how much I appreciate
the many opportunities she gave me of gaining experience in the Public Health
work in Stepney.
The mam features of the year so far as the vital statistics and the incidence
of disease are concerned, were as follows:—
The number of births decreased by 409 (legitimate 418 less, illegitimate
9 more), and this corresponds to a further decrease in the birth-rate
to 15.1 as compared with 16.7 last year.
The death-rate has increased slightly—80 deaths more—being 12.9 as
compared with 12.3.
The infant mortality rate increased from 61.6 (the lowest ever recorded
in Stepney) to 65.3 per 1,000 births. This rate is still the fourth lowest
recorded rate. The increase can be explained chiefly by the dry, and
therefore dusty, summer, which gave rise to an increase in infantile
diarrhoea. Actually there were 13 less in the number of total deaths of
children under the age of 1 year and amongst the illegitimate children
there were 10 more.
There were 235 deaths from Tuberculosis, or 15 more than in the
previous year, a death rate of 1.07 as compared with .9. At first sight
this increase would appear to be rather disappointing, but, in my opinion,
it was not to be unexpected in a hot and sunny year like this, and I would
like to take this opportunity of issuing the warning I constantly gave to
my "pulmonary" patients when I was Tuberculosis Officer—avoid sitting
in the sun; without medical supervision it is impossible to decide accurately
the proper dosage of sun in this country, with the result that severe and
dangerous reactions are apt to be set up.
There were 12 more new notifications of Tuberculosis, the increase
being due to male cases both pulmonary and non-pulmonary, as against
a decrease of 11 in the female non-pulmonary cases. The increase in the
number of deaths from, and of notification of, Tuberculosis, is larger than
would appear, because this increase has occurred in a population which
the Registrar-General has estimated being less by 4,000 than in 1932.