Health of Scotland

Abstract

ACCORDING to the report recently issued by the Department of Health for Scotland for the eighteen months January 1939 to June 1941, the health of that country in 1939 reached a level never attained before. The severe winter of 1940-41, however, was responsible for the deterioration in the first quarter of 1941 when the infantile mortality rose to 109. In 1939, 7,176 cases of tuberculosis with 3,526 deaths were reported, and in 1940, 7,670 and 4,003 respectively, while in the first half of 1941 the figures were 4,300 and 2,300. With the exception of tuberculosis, the War has so far not had much influence upon infectious diseases, unless the increased incidence of cerebrospinal fever be attributed to war conditions. There was an increase in diphtheria of about 50 per cent in 1940 over 1939, but in 1941 the incidence declined; about 440,000 children of school age and under, or approximately 40 per cent of the child population, have been immunized.