[Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, Chorley Borough.

  • Chorley (England). Borough Council
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, Chorley Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/74 (page 7)
    -7- In regard to causes of death during I968 one finds that heart diseases as usual caused the greatest number, l62 as compared with 140 in the previous year. Of these 133 vvere classified as due to Ischaemic Heart Disease (Coronary Disease) which is 33 more than in 196?. Next to heart disease as a cause of death comes malignant diseases with a total of 66 which represents reduction of 5* This gives a death rate from Cancer for the Borough of 2.1 per 1,000 population as compared with the national figure of 2.3* A close third in regard to frequency is cerebro-vascular disease (strokes) with 63 as compared with 78. Respiratory diseases accounted for 47 in the past year, the corresponding number in I967 being 64. The number of infants who died before reaching one year of age was 9 which is a reduction of 2 from the previous year's figures. The Infantile Mortality Rate for the Borough was, therefore, 17 per 1,000 live births. The corresponding figure for England and Wales and Lanca- shire was 18 and 19.4 respectively. It is pleasing to note that onev? again there were no deaths in I968 attributable to child-birth or abortion, there have been no such deaths since 1938. As in the previous year tuberculosis was responsible for only one death - a man over 63 years of age. All in all I feel that it should be said on this occasion that the Vital Statistics for the Borough are favourable hut v;hen dealing v;ith relatively small figures compared Vv'ith those for the country as a v;hole one must expect fluctuations both favourable and otherwise. The present trend, however, is encouraging and I think that tribute should be paid to the Medical and Nursing profession and to those responsible for the general improvement in environmental conditions. Regarding the incidence of infectious disease it is found that the total number of notifications was 398 including two cases of tuberculos ]_s as compared with 422 including 3 cases of tuberculosis in 1967. It must be noted however, that these two figrires are not strictly comparable as certain important changes were made regarding notifications procedure, in the list of notifiable diseases and in the provisions applicable to each disease. These changes were brought about by the coming into operation of the Public Health (Infective O'aundice) Regulations 1968, on 13th June, I968, and the Health Services and Public Health Act '’968 (Part III) and the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations 1968, on 1st October, I968. Measles accounted for 323 of the 398 notifications received during the year. In this connection, attention must be drawn to the introduction of a general scheme of Vaccination against measles during the year.