Many thanks to Jim Bridgman for his very informative blurb in “A Look Back” in the Gazette’s Jan. 4 edition. According to his column, the Gazette reported 38 deaths in the city of Northampton for 1824, a rate of mortality of 1 out of 87, suggesting that the population of the city at that time was 3,306. Bridgman did not list the causes of those deaths, but he did describe the breakdown of deaths by age group. One-quarter of the 38 deaths that year were children under the age of 10 (26%), while one-third of all deaths (34%) were children and teens below the age of 20.

It was in 1809 that the Massachusetts Legislature “ordered that every town, district and plantation where no board of health existed should choose three or more persons to supervise the inoculation of the inhabitants with cowpox [to prevent smallpox],” so I would assume that in 1824 the residents of Northampton had been so inoculated. But I could find no evidence that any other vaccinations were available or used in 1824.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the large death rate of young people that year (one-third of all deaths in the city!) was the result of infectious diseases that we rarely see these days because of the efficacy of vaccines. In 1905, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Thank you again, Mr. Bridgman, for reminding us of our history.

George W. Kriebel Jr.

Northampton