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Metropolitan Borongh of Deptford.
Public Health Department,
Deptford Town Hall,
S.E. 14.
14th May, 1930.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of Deptford.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you my first Annual Report upon
the sanitary circumstances, sanitary administration and vital statistics
of the Borough.
Before doing so, I should like to allude to the great loss the Borough
has sustained by reason of the departure of my predecessor, Dr. Charles
S. Thomson, who vacated office in order to fill the important position
of Superintendent Medical Officer of Health to the City of Belfast.
In endeavouring to assess the health of a District, it is customary
to take into account certain statistics, and it may be, perhaps, apposite
that I should draw your attention to certain points which merit special
consideration.
The birth-rate, although showing a fractional increase over the
figure for 1928, still remains at the low level it has now exhibited for
some years, while the death-rate shows a 10 per cent, increase over the
corresponding figure for the previous year. Too much stress need not
be laid upon the actual increase in the death-rate which, although to
some degree due to the influenza epidemic experienced in the early
months of the year, is also associated with the fact that a greater
number of persons reach the higher age-groups in which the percentage
mortality is correspondingly high. What emerges, however, from a
consideration of these rates, is that the natural increase or excess of