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IMMUNIZATIONS

By Lindsay Irvin, MD

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” – The Talmud

In October of 2017, my husband and I went to parents’ weekend how tenderly and lovingly they were remembered.
at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, where our youngest son In New England in the 1700s, according to the Plimoth (sic) Plan-
Joseph had just started his freshman year. We had an early morning tation and New England Genealogical Society, the mortality rate for
stroll around Walden Pond, where we watched the sunrise, balanced children in that era was high:
stones on a cairn honoring Henry David Thoreau, and tried to come A cumulative total of 36% of children died before the age of six,
to terms with the reality of being empty-nesters after focusing most and another 24% between the ages of seven and sixteen. In all, of
of our energy on our two children for the previous two decades. Then 100 live births, 60 would die before the age of 16.
we dried our tears and headed to Concord, MA for pancakes. Causes of death were numerous, including tetanus due to unsanitary
We ended up in the beautiful Old Hill Cemetery near the Concord conditions surrounding childbirth. Other prominent diseases included:
town center, which was decorated for Halloween. As I wandered whooping cough, diphtheria, dysentery, tuberculosis, typhus, typhoid
around the old grey granite headstones, many of which were scoured fever, rickets, chicken pox, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox and plague
by time and weather into being almost illegible, I was struck by how under their period names.
many of the graves – most from the 1700s – were for children, and I came away from that morning feeling grateful. I recognized the

10 San Antonio Medicine • November 2019