Annual Report on Public Health
The report for 1930 on the state of the public health of England and Wales by the chief medical officer of the ministry of health, Sir George Newman, has just been published. The year was exceptionally healthy, for it showed the lowest total death rate and the lowest infant mortality yet recorded. The principal causes of death were: diseases of the heart and circulation, 245 per thousand deaths; cancer, malignant disease, 127; bronchitis, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases, 114; diseases of the nervous system, 90; tuberculosis, 79. This classification is followed from year to year and usually shows the same order, but on no previous occasion has the number of deaths from cancer exceeded those from respiratory diseases. The cancer deaths numbered 57,882 and again showed an increase (against 56,896 for the previous year). This is equivalent to a death rate of 1,454 per million