Changes in Public Health in London in the Past Fifty Years

New Survey of London Life and Labour Vol. 1. Chapter VII. 1930. P.S. King and Son, London.

Local Government Board , 42nd Annual Report 1912-13. Supplement containing 2nd Report on Infant and Child Mortality, Cd. 6909, 1913.

The London Government Act 1963 created a new authority, the Greater London Council, for the whole of the conurbation (population 8 million) which then extended far beyond the boundaries of the pre-existing administrative county of London (population 4 million) and divided the area into 32 London Boroughs with local powers in part distinct, in part overlapping, with those of the Greater London Council; together with a preserved City of London Corporation governing "the square mile."

A review of the major studies relating to mortality will be found in Social economic and cultural factors in mortality . BENJAMIN B. International Committee for Social Sciences Documentation, Mouton et Cie. Hague, 1965.

Benjamin B. 'Tuberculosis and social conditions in the Metropolitan Borough of London' Brit. J. Tuber. 1953. 47. 4-17.

See evidence presented by the Centre for Urban Studies to the Milner Holland Committee on Housing in Greater London. This evidence stressed that improvement in housing had been uneven. Inequalities between living conditions of the comfortable and vulnerable groups had in some respects become even sharper. More distribution of housing was the keynote of London's troubles London's Housing Needs. GLASS R., with the assistance of J. WESTERGAARD, (1965) Centre for Urban Studies University CollegeReport No. 5, London.

It has been stressed elsewhere that the main contributions to public health progress have been advances in education; reduction of poverty and the concomitant improvement in nutrition and in the provision of other material needs (including housing); provision of adequate medical observation of incipient disease by services appropriate to different needs, viz. the maternity and child welfare services, the school health service, and the general practitioner service; provision of adequate curative services, espe

cially the hospital and specialist services. 'The Urban Background to Public Health changes in England and Wales 1900-50' BENJAMIN B. (1964 ) Population Studies Vol. XVII No. 3 pp 225-248.

National Food Survey Committee , Studies in Urban Household Diets, 1944-49 H.M.S.O., 1956.

National Food Survey Committee , Annual Report, 1957. H.M.S.O. , 1956.

Boyd Orr J. , Food, Health and Income, London 1936.

Private communication from GLC.

Their chosen methods, building more houses, offices, roads have been in operation for many years and clearly are chasing more people away.

Paper S11/113. 1971. Panel of Enquiry into Greater London Development Plan, H.M.S.O.

A.T. Gore 'Seventy-six years of public health in London' The Medical Officer (1966) Vol. CXVI No. 8 pp 105-114.

Ministry of Health , Survey of Hospital Services in London H.M.S.O., 1941.

Central Statistical Office. Regional Statistics 1977 H.M.S.O. 1978 .

Able Smith, B. and Townsend, P. , 1965 'The Poor and the Poorest' , Occasional Papers on Social Administration , No. 17, G. Bell and Sons , London.

Benjamin, B. (1967) 'The Assessment of Medical Care' Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. 60. 809-813.

There are other means to this end such as the re-examination of the distribution of levels of skill within the total manpower engaged and the reduction of manpower and in-patient inactivity by the automation of certain diagnostic procedures. These, however, are outside the present discussion.

Ministry of Health and General Register Office (1967) Report on Hospital Inpatient Enquiry for year 1963 Part I. Tables.

A deterioration of mortality for females is common to many developed countries and is considered to be due to the adoption by women of the life style of men, especially to the increase of cigarette smoking in women See BENJAMIN, B. & POLLARD, J. H. (1980) 'The Analysis of Mortality and other Actuarial Statistics" Heinemann. London.