Sheffield Historical Society presents "Balms, Bones, and Creeping Miasma"
SHEFFIELD, Mass, - "NOTICE Preventives of CHOLERA!" declares an historical bulletin published by the order of the Sanatoria Committee, under the sanction of the Medical Counsel. "BE TEMPERATE IN EATING & DRINKING! Avoid Raw Vegetables and Unripe Fruit! Abstain from COLD WATER, when heated, and above all from Ardent Spirits, And if habit have rendered them indispensable, take much less than usual…"Above is an excerpt from a program called "Balms, Bones, and Creeping Miasma" that Dennis D. Picard will give on the topic of early medical care in Sheffield. The program will take place at the Sheffield Historical Society's monthly meeting on Friday, November 13, at 7:30 pm in Dewey Memorial Hall. Dennis Picard, of Westfield, Director of Storrowton Village museum in West Springfield, MA , will share stories of medical emergencies, epidemics and everyday health issues as faced by the citizens of Sheffield and Southern Berkshire County from the time of the earliest English/European settlement to the Revolution in medical thought of the mid-19th century.
Epidemics accounted for a large proportion of deaths in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sweeping thousands of people away in the course of a few months. Diphtheria, influenza, measles, pneumonia, scarlet fever, and smallpox ravaged the population, producing death rates as high as 30 per thousand. According to a traveler who passed though Sheffield in 1795, "inhabitants were suddenly seized with a malignant bilious fever, and seventy percent died." The 1829 History of Berkshire County traces the epidemic to the miasma of Mill Pond, which bred on account of an inordinately hot and wet season but abated with the arrival of the autumn frosts. In her book Sheffield: Frontier Town, Lillian Preiss notes that "the dam was lowered by court decree, and there was no return of the pond fever. A healthy climate restored, the population rose rapidly from 1,899 in 1790 to 2,050 in 1800, and 2, 439 in 1810…"
Preiss also relates an 1814 epidemic during the first year of Rev. Bradford's ministry at the Old Parish Church. Through an incredible effort of collective prayer and worship among his parishioners the plague was miraculously "stayed, and the voice of health again generally heard." Bradford continued his reflection in a sermon on the epidemic, which he thought was "remarkable for the interest felt among the people here relative to the salvation of the soul." There is perhaps an echo of the Great Awakening having reached the frontier in this line, but all the same, Preiss faithfully records that by 1820 the population had risen again to 2, 476.
Dennis D. Picard has been a museum professional in the living history field for thirty years. Beginning his career at Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts, his background is in sociology and museum studies. He has authored many articles on the lifestyles and folkways of New England and has also served as a consultant for many Historical Societies and Museums.
He has held the position of Assistant Director and Director at several sites including Fort Number Four in Charlestown, NH, the Sheffield Historical Society here in Berkshire County, and presently at Storrowton Village Museum in West Springfield, MA.
All Society programs are free and open to the public. For more information about Society programs, please contact the Sheffield Historical Society at (413) 229-2694 or visit us on the web at www.sheffieldhistory.org. If unfamiliar with Sheffield and its environs, Dewey Memorial Hall is located on the town green. Build in 1887 with locally quarried fieldstone and marble, it is the shingle-style building immediately south of the post office.
