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TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS
of the
Walthamstow Urban District Council.
Gentlemen,
It is required of every Medical Officer of Health appointed
under order of the Local Government Board to make an Annual
Report, dealing with the Public Health and the general circumstances
affecting it, so far as the district is concerned over which he has charge.
I therefore submit to you this, the Annual Report for 1908, the
eleventh since my appointment.
It is inevitable that much of the matter contained therein will be
familiar to those of you who have read my monthly reports, since this
can be but a summary of those, with remarks or suggestions that a consideration
of them as a whole may call forth.
Dealing as it does with the whole year, its perusal will show that the
Public Health of your District has enjoyed in 1908 an immunity
hitherto unknown.
Not only is the general death.rate from all causes the lowest recorded,
but the contributory rates are in every instance lower than
those of England and Wales.
The corrected death.rate is 10.1 per 1,000, or 1 4 less than in 1907,
compared with 14.7 for England and Wales, and 15.8 for the "76
Great Towns."
The Zymotic death.rate, or that resulting from the deaths caused by
Measles, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Enteric and
Diarrhoea, is but .95 per 1,000, or one.half as great as in 1907, and 1.48
less than the average of the preceding 10 years.