[Report 1964] / Medical Officer of Health, Rugby Borough.
- Rugby (England). Borough Council.
- Date:
- 1964
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1964] / Medical Officer of Health, Rugby Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.
5/50 page 3
![To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of Rugby Mr. Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors, I herewith present the Annual Report on the health of the inhabitants of the Borough and the sanitary circumstances prevailing during the year 1964. A review of the vital statistics for 1964 shows that the population increased from 54,290 to 54,950 (an increase of 660), but this increase is less than that of the previous year (780), so that there would appear to have been a slight declination in the population growth. This may be due to a number of factors— (a) slowing down in the immigrant population, (b) numbers of people leaving the town owing to changing circumstances of employment, viz. diminished work on motorways, and workers from electrical firms being posted elsewhere in the country, (c) a fall in the number of live births, (d) increase in total deaths. Both (c) and (d) can be seen to have occurred in 1964. However, the figures being dealt with are small, but it does appear that the rapid increases in population which reached a peak in 1961 are showing slow regression. Live births in 1964 totalled 1,021 compared with 1,069 in 1963, and ],093 in 1962. Of the 1964 total, 83 were illegitimate, i.e. 8 per cent, or I in every 12-13 births. Still births totalled 21, as compared with 18 in 1963. Deaths of infants under one year of age numbered 20, just 1 less than in 1963. The total number of deaths from all causes was 583, an increase of II over 1963, of which 125 were from malignant new growths in all forms, which gives a ratio of 1 in every 4.6 (1963 figures were 1 in every 6.3). Cancers of lung and bronchus were again high on the list—30 of the total cancer deaths of 125. Heart and circulatory diseases caused the deaths of 262 persons, 120 of whom were over the age of seventy-five. From this brief study of the 1964 vital statistics, some features stand our like beacons. Of all deaths in Rugby in 1964:— I death in every 4.6 was due to cancer; 1 death in every 4 deaths from cancer was due to cancer of the lung, or, in other words, every eighteenth death in Rugby was due to cancer of the lung. Sufficient publicity has been given to the various reports of medical authorities on the causative factors relative to lung cancer deaths, but it would appear that little heed is taken of such evidence. With the cessation of tobacco and cigarette advertising on television in July 1965 some diminution in consumption may occur, but the results of such cessation cannot be but long-term. There was but one death from tuberculosis in 1964 in a male over sixty-five years of age. In looking back to the Annual Report for 1948, I find that in that year 36 persons died of tuberculosis in all its forms. This is a tremendous achievement, and there are many factors to account for this—improved nutrition with better living standards, improved early detection of cases, and the drug treatment available which is compara¬ tively rapid in its action on the causative organism. Allied to these reasons we have the continued follow-up of families where the disease has occurred by the general practitioner, health visitor and chest physician. In an effort to make identification of “hidden cases” possible, a system of skin testing (“Heaf test”) of school children from the age of entry at five years to the age of twelve, was instituted in schools in the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3004649x_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
