[Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Woodhall Spa U.D.C.

  • Woodhall Spa (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Woodhall Spa U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/46 (page 2)
    To the Chairman and. Members, Woodhall Spa Urban District Council* Mr. Chairman, Mrs Flury and Members, In presenting the statutory annual report of your Medical Officer of health, I must offersome explanation for the delay beyond the usual date of publication. As you are aware, my predecessor left the district and it was for me to discover for myself what matters had affe¬ cted the health of the district during the ye-ar and to offer my comments upon them. It would not have been wise to have attempted this without some first-hand experience of the district, and this is not quickly obtained. Figures speak for themselves, but not unfortunately, always truthfully, and the statistics for so small a pop¬ ulation have to be carefully considered before they can be used as aiy basis for discussion. Certain matters do, however arise from the statistical section of this report* It will be seen that pneumonia notifications are some ten times as frequent in Woodhall Spa as in Horncastle, but before rushing to the conclusion that the Spa was a deadly place, it would be necessary to think very much further. Firstly '’pneumonia* is not a clear-cut disease like measles and its course is so much modified nowadays by treatment that it is often, in fact, aborted at a stage in which a con¬ scientious doctor is hard pressed to say whether in fact it ’was an actual pneumonia. Other factors, too, had to be considered - whether there was any real difference in the age distribution of the population between the two towns, or whether the climate was affeeted significantly by the number cf trees in the Spa. In the end, although a ten-fold disparity in notification occurs, it may well be of little significance. Obviously, though, investigations will have to continue. Quite a lot of space has been devoted to water-supply, and much of the statistical work appears to reflect badly upon the Spa. Reflection again, however, shows that the majority of small towns or villages of this size have no supply to be criticised, or have benefittedby recent developments 2