By Deb Blodgett
 
If you were a child skipping rope in Hatfield in 1918, you might have recited this popular rhyme:
 
I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flew-enza.
 
The year 1918 marked the beginning of a worldwide epidemic that later became known as the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. While it is easy to think that this epidemic only impacted large overcrowded cities, this simply was not the case. Hatfield, like many small rural towns, was not left unscathed.  
 
Although the disease was called the “Spanish Flu,” the name was a misnomer. During World War I, the United States and several European countries censored news about the influenza epidemic, fearing additional panic or adverse impact on soldier morale. During the war, Spain remained neutral, which resulted in its newspapers freely reporting news of the influenza epidemic. This incorrectly led many to believe Spain was the origin of the disease, or more severely impacted than other countries, which was not the case. In fact, an estimated one-third of the world’s population, about 500 million, became infected and the total deaths due to influenza were tallied between 50 and 100 million people during the approximately six months of the pandemic spanning late 1918 and early 1919. About 675,000 of these deaths occurred in the United States.

In Massachusetts, it was conservatively reported that 400,000 became infected between September and December of 1918. As many physicians and nurses were enlisted in the military, the number of available medical professionals available to battle this illness was reduced. In addition, hospital facilities throughout the state were sorely unprepared to accommodate the sizable number of cases, prompting the establishment of about 50 emergency hospitals throughout the state. The most dramatic impact occurred in October 1918 with an average of 418 deaths occurring per day. The total Massachusetts deaths attributable to influenza in 1918 totaled 13,783. However, an additional 4,643 deaths listed influenza as a secondary cause of death, bringing the total impact of influenza-related deaths to 18,426.  In 1919, there were 2,872 deaths attributable to influenza. The expense to the Massachusetts government in fighting the influenza outbreak amounted to about $100,000 in 1918. (That would be about $1.6 million in today’s dollars.)

Beginning in 1884, Massachusetts law required town board of health officials to keep a record of residents infected with diseases deemed dangerous to public health. Bound books were provided by the state printing office to each town for this purpose so as to provide consistency in data reporting. These log books included spaces to record the disease contracted, as well as the impacted individual’s name, age, occupation, address, reporting individual, and disposition. However, before September 1918, influenza was not one of the reportable diseases as it was not considered dangerous to public health before the 1918 strain.

Fortunately, the Record of Dangerous Diseases, Town of Hatfield, still exists, thus allowing us to examine how the town was impacted by the epidemic. Hatfield’s first reported case of influenza occurred on Oct. 8, 1918, infecting a 26-year-old male. By Dec. 31, a total of 364 residents had contracted the illness, nearly 14% of the town’s population. An additional 53 cases occurred in the first few months of 1919, with the last cases being reported on March 24, 1919. A total of 417 residents became ill during the six months of the epidemic (see below):

One of Hatfield’s two in-town physicians, Dr. Charles A. Byrne, treated 82% of the town’s infected residents with the remaining residents being treated by doctors from Northampton and other area towns. The town’s other in-town doctor, Dr. Alfred Bonneville, was away serving in World War I in the Medical Corps. While not all of the residents’ ages were reported, of those that were, the youngest patient was 9 months old and the eldest patient was 50 years old. It is likely that most infected patients were between the ages of 20 and 40, which is the typical age group that this strain of influenza affected.

Hatfield was fortunate that the majority of its impacted residents recovered.  Influenza-related deaths were low, with six deaths having occurred in 1918 (although, as discussed above, an additional five deaths may have had influenza as a contributing factor) and no deaths by influenza in 1919.

Deb Blodgett is a volunteer at the Hatfield Historical Museum. She enjoys historical and genealogical research, and her interests include the study of artifacts, industries and family life of rural 19th century New England.

*For more information about health care in Hatfield in the first half of the 20th century, check out the following post about our Mass Humanities Scholar in Residence Grant as well as a guest blog post by our summer Scholar in Residence, UMass PhD candidate Ann Robinson, and visit the Hatfield Historical Museum’s current exhibit “From House Calls to Hoaxes: The Changing Face of Health Care in Hatfield.” 

Sources:
1. Jeffery K. Taubenberger and David M. Morens, “1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, 12:1 (2006): 15-22.
2. Laura Stephenson Carter, “Cold Comfort,” Dartmouth Medicine, (Winter 2006): 36-57.
3. Harold D. Wilson, ed., Seventy-Seventh Annual Report on the Vital Statistics of Massachusetts…for the Year 1918 (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1920), 94, 180, 190, 199, 241.
4. Annual Report on the Vital Statistics of Massachusetts…for the Year 1919 (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1921), 99, 191.
5. The Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Enacted November 21, 1901 … (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1902), Chapter 75, Section 51, 666.
6. Fourth Annual Report of the State Department of Health of Massachusetts (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1919), 3-6.
7. Record of Diseases Dangerous to Public Health, Town of Hatfield, 1915-1944, original manuscript, Hatfield, Massachusetts.

 It was three 5th and 6th grade girls and our town clerk who made my day last Tuesday, helping to answer the question: Why do we save items from our town’s history, anyway? Why not just send folks to the Internet, where they can read up on wars, migrations and how things used to be?

These girls often pop upstairs after school and ask if the museum is open – or if there are any jobs for them to do. I tell them, well, the museum is officially closed so we can work – with open boxes filling the tables and some of the aisles – but that they’re welcome to look around if they’re careful. They check out the WWII cigar thank you letters and the schoolchildren letters sent in 1911 to a sick classmate (Johnnie Winters). Then one of the girls (Grace, Rose or Lily) glances around the WWII exhibit case and asks if the blood-stained Bible is still on display. I tell her no, since the Civil War exhibit has been replaced, but, I could show it to them all the same.

I have to reach up high to get it, and carefully bring it down. Over at a clear table I show them the exquisite custom blue box made for the pocket 1863 New Testament by paper conservator and bookbinder Daniel Gehnrich. The box and repairs on the book were funded by the town’s Community Preservation Act. Prior to that, it had been wrapped in saran wrap, resting on a wire plate holder. I show them how the box doubles as a display stand so we don’t have to handle it, and where the supposed bullet hole used to be, amidst the blood-stained pages.

Together, we wonder how the blood got there, and what happened to the soldier. They read the label and see it was donated by a Dr. C.S. Hurlburt of Springfield, a dentist, who married Mary Wait Allis of Hatfield.

Sitting next to me on the table is a book I had gotten from the town clerk (Lydia Szych) earlier in the day, to add some numbers to our recently completed Mass Humanities-funded medical history grant, and it occurs to me these curious-minded girls might find the book as interesting as I did. I have them read me the title on the spine: Record of Dangerous Diseases, Town of Hatfield.

The book records all of the town’s infectious diseases between 1915 and 1944, including an outbreak of measles in 1918 (53 cases!) among schoolchildren and several hundred case of influenza in 1918-1919, resulting in at least 11 deaths. Coincidentally, Rose had just been looking at a book in the library downstairs that talked about the very same flu epidemic – and here was the Hatfield record of cases in our town.

We note that a girl of 7 who lived on Bridge St. contracted mumps on the same day, Nov. 17, one hundred years earlier. Likewise, Grace notes that someone contracted influenza on her birthday in October, nearly 100 years ago. They all make sad noises upon seeing that two of the children who contracted whooping cough in  Dec. 1915 and Jan. 1916 – a 1 year-old and a 2-1/2-mo.-old. – died (see center image above).

One of the girls’ phones rings, and it is getting late, so I tell them to come back another day. I hear them say to each other going down the stairs,“that was fun…” And I think, yes, that was fun, and it reminds me why we are here.

Between 1883 and 1914, the leading cause of death in Hatfield, MA, was – ? Any guesses?

Pneumonia -- 90 cases. The biggest cause of accidental death was drowning – at least some of which occurred while washing up in the river. Those who couldn’t pay their doctor bills to Dr. Charles A. Byrne – one of Hatfield’s two in-town physicians – sometimes paid in onions, or potatoes or with their services – by painting his carriage, or doing his washing (see page from his appointment book below). Dr. Byrne saw patients seven days a week, either in their homes or in his office in the front parlor of his home at 83 Main St. (back then it was numbered 46 Main St.).

These are just a few of the findings that have come out of this summer’s research by UMass PhD student Ann Robinson, based in Cambridge, MA. Ann was our scholar in the Scholar in Residence (SIR) Grant we won last spring. The grant, co-written by UMass History Prof. Emily Redman and myself, was funded in part by Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant was also made possible, in part, by the Collections Management & Preservation Grant from the Town of Hatfield’s Community Preservation Act (CPA), which allowed the museum to be open and monitored during the time in which our scholar worked. Without the CPA grant, we would have been unable to apply for or to carry out the SIR grant.

Called “Understanding Early 20th Century Medical Care in Hatfield,” the SIR grant provided funding of $2,500 to our scholar and $500 to a project director (myself), that allowed us (mostly Ann) to spend some 286 hours researching and inventorying our rich collection of documents and artifacts, primarily related to the medical practice of Hatfield doctor Dr. Charles Armstrong Byrne. Dr. Byrne came to Hatfield in 1895, fresh out of medical school, and practiced here until his son Robert took over in 1933. Ann's research included exploring Dr. Byrne's appointment books (from 1897 to 1933), his patient record envelopes, and his speeches and lecture notes.

This grant generated a 20-page report plus annotated reading list; a searchable inventory for artifacts related to early 20th century medical care in Hatfield (see description of inventory HERE and inventory link below); an expanded inventory that we will use for writing labels for the exhibit to come; and numerous spreadsheets, including 1) ranked causes of death in Hatfield (from 1883-1914), 2) causes of death by year during the same period, and 3) country of origin, occupation, and vital stats for many Hatfield patients. Within Dr. Byrne’s yearly appointment books, and in his collection of patient record slips, lies of wealth of additional information to be mined.

In addition to the two granting organizations, this project would not have been possible without the generosity and foresight of the Byrne family, who donated Dr. Charles Byrne’s lectures and speeches, and either donated or loaned many of his medical tools and medicines. Likewise, we also needed the generosity and patience of Joe Lavallee, who moved into the Byrne house at 83 Main St. approximately 40 years ago with his wife Mary Jane, and held onto numerous items from Dr. Byrne's medical practice until the Historical Museum was in a position to receive them. We thank you all!

Because of our space constraints, most of the products of the SIR grant research will be used to create an online exhibit for which we plan to apply for a Project Grant with Mass Humanities in the coming year. One product we are making public today is the searchable inventory of our early 20th century medical care collection. To check this out, click HERE, and don’t miss images related to the SIR grant below.

We also invite you to stop by the Hatfield Historical Museum at 39 Main St., where you can see our physical collection of Dr. Charles Byrne’s tools and medicines as part of our current held-over exhibit, "From House Calls to Hoaxes” – including scary dental tools, glass globe pessaries (oh my!),  castor oil, cocaine (er…toothache) drops, and more.

And if you happen to have access to any records or artifacts related to the practice of Dr. Alfred Bonneville -- the other physician practicing in Hatfield in the early 20th century -- it would greatly help us flesh out this picture of medical care during that time. We are also looking for stories or details of doctor visits through the mid -1930s with Dr. Charles Byrne, Dr. Alfred Bonneville or the Visiting Nurse (Marie Duval). Just let us know!

To read Ann Robinson's blog post on her summer of research, click HERE.