[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hammersmith Borough].

  • Hammersmith (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1946?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hammersmith Borough]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/30 (page 3)
    HAM 37 3 Town Hall, Hammersmith, W.6. To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith. Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,—I submit to you the annual report on the health of the Borough for the year 1945. This report is still controlled by instructions from the Ministry of Health and is in a very abridged form. As is known to you, Dr. W. H. Brodie, the Medical Officer of Health, returned to his permanent work at Penang in the autumn and discontinued his duties in Hammersmith on the last day of September. It is not for me to enumerate his fine achievements whilst in the Borough, as these are probably better known to yourselves. Before Dr. Brodie left England, however, he had, so far as possible, geared the health services to a peace-time regime. During the year the health of the Borough was remark ably good. The infant mortality rate was the lowest on record, except for the war-time years of 1939 and 1941, when the rate was calculated on a special birth figure sup plied by the Registrar General. It is pleasing to be able to record also that only one maternal death took place. For the first time for over four years part of the year now reviewed deals with peace-time conditions. The total number of deaths in the Borough was 110 less than in the previous year: this decrease is due to the war ending in May. The figures for air-raid deaths during 1944 were 188, as against only 29 in 1945. There was an in crease in the number of infectious disease notifications of over 1,000 cases. This is explained by an epidemic of measles. There was also an increase in the number of cases of dysentery notified. In the majority of these cases