THE ·OSLER·LI BRARY·NEWSLE TTER· NUMBER 110 · 2008 Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal (Québec) Canada • IN THIS ISSUE OSLER AND GRACE VISIT TRACADIE IN THIS FALL ISSUE, ARTHUR Gryfe, pathologist at the Trillium Health Centre, Mississauga, n 1889, William Osler and writer, planning to create the by Arthur Gryfe Ontario, explores a mysterious decided, apparently at the definitive medical textbook, trip that William Osler and I eleventh hour, to change his would visit one of the two young W.W. Francis embarked summer travel plans. Instead of leprosaria in Canada. But why, of on to visit a leprosarium in New attending the annual meeting of all places, would he take an 11 Brunswick… in the company of the Canadian Medical Associa- year-old boy, and the woman he two unmarried ladies, one of tion in the beautiful mountainous would marry three years later? them destined to be his wife. setting of Banff, Alberta, he took Please read on! his 11 year old cousin, Billy Francis, and headed off to the Recent McGill Information leper colony at Tracadie in Studies graduate Jacqueline remote New Brunswick. He also Barlow describes her role in our arranged to rendezvous along the digital project, “The William way with the recently widowed Osler Photo Collection”, which Grace Revere Gross. Grace and involved cataloguing the photo- a friend, Sarah Woolley, ac- graphs assembled by Harvey companied Osler to Tracadie. Cushing, and subsequent Osler Billy decided to wait with friends staff, for on-line access, thanks to 30 miles away in Caraquet. generous funding from the It was the year before Osler McGovern Foundation. began writing his famous textbook, The Principles and Practice Dr. Chuck Roland who has just of Medicine, in which, he refers to published his biography of Dr. his trip to Tracadie. According to Archibald Malloch, the senior the time-honoured story, when member of three generations of Osler received the first copy of a family with close ties with the Principles in 1892, he tossed the Osler family, continues with his book into Grace’s lap and column, “Roland’s Canadian exclaimed, “There, take the darn Medical History Miniatures”. thing; now what are you going This issue’s candidate is geologist/ to do with the man?” They doctor Robert Bell. married three months later. Osler had previously proposed to And as is usual in the fall, we send Grace sometime between their you our annual appeal, with a visit to Tracadie and the book- report of the range of activities tossing incident, but she had that take place here, in large advised him to complete his Miss Sarah Woolley, William Osler, W.W. Francis measure, thanks to your help. writing first. and Grace Revere Osler, taken in 1889, William Osler It is easy to understand why Photo Collection, CUS_046-31_P Osler, the consummate physician • ·1· • and remained associated with the lazaretto until his death, 44 years later. When Smith moved to Tracadie in 1865, there were 21 patients in the lazaretto. It was very difficult to get people from the area to work there, and no proper nursing was available. In September 1868, six nuns from the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal were sent to the lazaretto, and under the name of Les Religieuses Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph à Tracadie, they and their suc- cessors served the establishment Back of photo, William Osler Photo Collection, CUS_046-31_PB for 97 years. Six months after the nursing sisters arrived, Dr. Smith’s position as Medical Super- When While searching for the answer visited Tracadie in 1889, he intendent was terminated to save Osler visited to that question, I serendipitously supported the theory that leprosy money. He and his wife, Helen, Tracadie in discovered a previously un- was infectious, possibly with moved to Chatham where he published letter from Osler to Dr. some hereditary predisposition.(2) opened a general practice. 1889, he Alfred Corbett Smith, an After an unsuccessful attempt However he retained his interest supported the attending physician to the to create a lazaretto on Sheldrake in leprosy and the leprosarium. lazaretto. This led to the Island, and with unremitting Two years later, in 1871, theory that discovery of four additional lobbying by the clergy and by Joseph-Auguste Babineau became leprosy was unpublished letters, directly family and friends of the lepers, the priest of the parish of infectious, associated with or resulting from a lazaretto was constructed at Tracadie, and as the Super- Osler’s visit, including two more Tracadie in 1849, where the intendent of the lazaretto and a possibly written by Osler himself. These patients would be close to home. member of the Board, he wielded with some letters significantly influenced However, the buildings were considerable power in the hereditary the management of leprosy small and poorly ventilated. running of the institution and in patients in Canada, the career of Three years later, they were the direction of the sisters. He predisposition. Dr. Smith, and the construction accidentally destroyed by fire. A decided who would be admitted of new living and hospital new lazaretto was constructed as a patient, and had control over facilities for the leprosy patients the following year. treatment. It was around this time and their care givers. This paper The lazaretto was under the that Mycobacterium leprae, the will discuss only briefly the management of a Provincial causative agent of leprosy, was history of leprosy in New Board of Health, each member of discovered by Norwegian phy- Brunswick and the lazaretto in which, possessed despotic power. sician G.H.A. Hansen. Tracadie, since these subjects Lepers were hunted like wild Before the 1870s were over, the have been described in other beasts, dragged away by an iron sisters’ authority was reduced. publications, most notably by hook attached to a long pole, Due to faulty diagnoses, patients Losier and Pinet in Children of handcuffed, and thrown into a with skin diseases other than Lazarus: The Story of the Lazaretto at prison, surrounded by a 12 foot leprosy had been admitted. Some Tracadie.(1) wall, surmounted by a row of remained for over a year. It Leprosy first appeared in New long spikes to prevent escape. became obvious that Babineau Brunswick around 1815. The When the Medical Super- and the nuns did not have primary source of infection in the intendent died suddenly in 1865, sufficient medical expertise. As a province is unknown. Until late 25 year old Dr. Alfred Corbett result, in October 1878, Smith in the 19th century, the medical Smith, a recent graduate of was appointed Consulting Physi- community was undecided if the Harvard Medical School and a cian to the lazaretto by the New disease was contagious, he- native of nearby Bathurst, N.B., Brunswick Legislature. He reditary, or both. When Osler was appointed to the position, advised on in-patient care, and • ·2· visited the lazaretto four times a Province, joined forces with Tracadie. The first mention that year, for which he received an them”.(3) he was about to head for New annual salary of $200 and travel The “doctor-friend in charge of Brunswick was a short, previously expenses. However he had no the leper colony” was Alfred unpublished letter, in Osler’s real jurisdiction in the hospital Corbett Smith, and the “friends” hand, to the Minister of the itself, but visited the surrounding with whom they “joined forces” Interior, sent from 83 Wellesley parishes, inspecting homes and were the recently widowed Grace Street, Toronto, and dated only, factories, and by “moral suasion”, Revere Gross and her closest “Monday”. It reads, removed suspected cases to the friend, Sarah Woolley. Osler had hospital. known Grace and her late Dear Sir, In 1880, the jurisdiction of the husband, Dr. Samuel Gross, for It is my intention to visit this lazaretto was transferred to the some time, and had often been a month the Lazaretto for Lepers Federal Department of Agri- guest in their home. After the at Tracadie. Could you kindly culture, after an investigation demise of Samuel, Osler con- send me an official letter in revealed conflicts of interest and tinued to see Grace frequently order to save any trouble there squabbles amongst Board mem- and often referred to her as “The might be in seeing the place. bers. The federal takeover of the Widow Gross”. lazaretto seemed to result in a In all editions of his textbook, Yours truly, sudden curiosity on the part of Principles and Practice of Medicine, William Osler the general public. Throughout Osler refers to his trip to Professor of Medicine Osler the 1880s, a steady stream of Tracadie. In the first edition, Johns Hopkins Univ. continued to reporters, politicians, and the published in 1892, he wrote, “An Baltimore (5) see Grace clergy made their way to the endemic focus [of leprosy] is at Tracadie hospital. The reports Tracadie, New Brunswick. A few It appears that when Osler frequently that appeared in the newspapers cases are also met with in Cape reached Toronto, on his intended and often and magazines were not flat- Breton, N.S. At Tracadie, which way to Alberta, he stopped to tering. is on a bay of the Gulf of St. visit relatives, learned that Grace referred to her During the summer of 1889, Lawrence, the disease is limited Gross was vacationing on Grand as “The William Osler relocated from to two or three counties which Manan Island, and decided to Widow Philadelphia to the newly opened are settled by French Canadians. travel instead to New Brunswick. Johns Hopkins Hospital in The disease was imported from The only account of his eastward Gross”.