[Report 1956] / Medical Officer of Health, Nuneaton Borough.

  • Nuneaton (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1956
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1956] / Medical Officer of Health, Nuneaton Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/30 (page 4)
    Health Department, Council House, Nuneaton. To the Ohasrman and Members of the Health Committee: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to present to you my annual report for the year 1956. Looking back in this Jubilee year on the development of the Health Services in the Borough since the granting of the Charter 50 years ago, it is difficult to pin-point particular events which have marked the forward progress. It is only when one compares the conditions which existed then with those obtain¬ ing to-day that the truly remarkable improvement becomes apparent. In 1907 the Borough was emerging from a recent smallpox epidemic, typhoid fever was endemic in the town, and only a few years earlier it had swept through the population in a serious epidemic. Diphtheria was prevalent and accounted foi the deaths of a number of children each year. In 1957 all these diseases are comparatively rare, and in the case of diphtheria the advent of immunisation has virtually eradicated the disease Other infectious diseases such as measles and scarlet fever are still with us, and one cannot say that there has been any real reduction in the number of cases occurring from year to year. There has, however, been a very great change in the number of children dying from these diseases. For example, 50 years ago ten or twelve children dying from measles in a year was not considered uncommon. In 1955 we had the heaviest epidemic of measles recorded in the town, but there was not a single death. This change has been due in some measure to the use of the sulpha-drugs and antibiotics such as penicillin to treat any complications which may arise, but improved living con¬ ditions have also played their part. One other disease must be mentioned. Tuberculosis, “ The Great White Scourge,” as the Medical Officer of Health at the time called it in one of his reports, claimed 35 to 40 victims a year in Nuneaton during the early part of the century. Nowadays, even with a population that has almost doubled, we normally expect less than a dozen deaths in a year. Leaving infectious diseases and looking at deaths in general, once again we see a very great change indeed. Fifty years ago more than half the deaths occurring each year were of children