M EDICAL M ILESTONES $5 Quebec HeritageVOL 3, NO. 10 JULY-AUGUST 2006 News James Douglas Jr. Anatomy of an eclectic mind Immortal Melody A tribute to Dr. James Robert Adams Beating the Barriers Canadian cardiology pioneer Maude Abbott Quebec CONTENT HeritageNews EDITOR CHARLES BURY PRODUCTION & DESIGN DAN PINESE Pesident’s Message 3 Leaving Bedlam Rod MacLeod PUBLISHER Letters 4 THE QUEBEC ANGLOPHONE HERITAGE NETWORK TimeLines 5 400-257 QUEEN STREET Here’s to history’s schoolmarms Dan Pinese SHERBROOKE (LENNOXVILLE) Memory lapses Dan Pinese QUEBEC Celtic cross on Grosse-Ile Marianna O’Gallagher J1M 1K7 Ste. Agathe, Sarnac Lake rekindle tradition Joseph Graham PHONE 1-877-964-0409 Anatomy of an Eclectic Mind 10 (819) 564-9595 The life and times of James Douglas Jr. Patrick Donovan FAX Dr. E.D. Worthington 14 564-6872 An early Quebec anaesthetist Charles Bury CORRESPONDENCE Immortal Melody 16 [email protected] James Robert Adams, music and medicine Joseph Graham WEBSITE Beating the Barriers 19 WWW.QAHN.ORG The legacy of Maude Abbott Dan Pinese The Unsung Genius 20 Reginald Fessenden Terry Skeats PRESIDENT St. Columban 24 RODERICK MACLEOD An Irish settlement remembered at last Sandra Stock EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Return to Hear 26 DWANE WILKIN Reading oral history Dan Pinese HERITAGE PORTAL COORDINATOR MATHEW FARFAN Book Reviews 27 OFFICE MANAGER The Scots of Montreal KATHY TEASDALE America Steppin out Quebec Heritage Magazine is Photo Essay 29 produced on a bi-monthly basis by the Old-fashioned day Jacqueline Hyman Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) with the support of The Department of Canadian Heritage and HindSight 30 Quebec’s Ministere de la Culture et A Progress of Germs Dwane Wilkin des Communications. QAHN is a non-profit and non-partisan umbrella Event Listings organization whose mission is to help 31 advance knowledge of the history and culture of English-speaking society in Quebec. Canada Post Publication Mail Front Page Photograph: Protestant Insane Asylum, Douglas Hospital, Agreement Number 405610004. Verdun (about 1890). Photograph courtesy of the McCord Museum Archives. Correction: In the May-June issue, the images used in Joseph Graham’s article, “The Levines of Trout Lake” were not credited. The images were provided by Patty Brown from her private collection. PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Leaving Bedlam by Rod MacLeod rotestants are especially bad at ciety’s down-and-outs were housed nounced, adding with significant em- dealing with mental illness. with minimal care. One can read phasis “when cure is possible.” Not a Convinced that the fault lies “modern and scientific” as an answer storage facility, but a place where those Pnot in our stars but in our- to a problem of staffing: in Protestant “suffering from the saddest kind of af- selves, we are taught to be stoic and re- culture people, especially women, did fliction” could get help, even treat- gard insanity as a kind of personal fail- not take on the task of caring for down- ment. The key word here is “afflic- ing. As evidence I need look no fur- and-outs as a vocation, and so one had tion”—truly a startling notion: patients ther than to my own family: to my to cut corners. At any rate, there were to be seen as victims rather than mother, who would not sully her lips emerged the notion of a hospital where culprits, objects of pity rather than of with the word “depressed” until it was one went to be cured of what ailed one scorn. More than simply applying sci- too late to do much about it; to a (at least insofar as medical practice ence to the care of the sick, the cousin who was so convinced he was a would allow—which wasn’t far at all, founders had overturned centuries of failure in everybody’s eyes (it did not conviction that mental illness was help that his devoutly Baptist wife kept God’s way of saying you just weren’t telling him this) that he put a gun to good enough. his head; even to the couple of times in my own life when I qually innova- have looked back over a tive was the difficult period and asked new hospital’s myself why on earth I Ewillingness to hadn’t “gone to see accommodate people someone.” I know why from all social classes. I didn’t, of course: we By this I mean the rich are all sure that it’s just a as well as the poor, not question of effort and we the other way round: will be around that corner hospitals traditionally and right as rain. Certainly catered to those who could no call to go alarming people. not afford to die at home. Yes, Given this historical intolerance having private as well as public of mental problems, one must admire wards made for a two-tiered system the men who set about creating Mon- with all its implicit unfairness: private treal’s Protestant Hospital for the In- until they tumbled onto hygiene) rather patients had their own bedrooms and sane in the 1870s. By that time, the than simply wait it out under the care dining spaces, and ate bacon and eggs city’s Protestant community had creat- of dedicated nuns. The new approach for Sunday breakfast as well as jam in- ed all kinds of institutions, including required professionalization, and thus stead of syrup with their tea. But the schools, an orphanage, a cemetery, and emerged increasingly specialized doc- presence of the rich proved that hospi- a hospital. These were intended to be tors and nurses. tal care had ceased to be an act of char- public alternatives to the ones run by But how to deal with the insane? ity and become a public responsibility. religious orders, although in most cases For people who had passed beyond the The care received, the program of the religious orders were not aware pale of sanity there had to be some- stimulating activities, and the healthy they were being exclusive and the Grey thing better than the equivalent of Bed- environment were clearly more con- Nuns even called theirs “l’Hopital lam or, in the case of wealthy families, ducive to wellness than any home, no général”—though never “The Gener- shutting someone up in a tower à la matter how comfortable. al.” Protestants tended to see their in- Rochester’s first wife. The founders of Naturally it was important to find stitutions as modern and scientific, at Montreal’s new Protestant Hospital a suitable site. In addition to a quiet least so far as Victorians understood clearly had an agenda: “The institution atmosphere with fresh air the founders these terms. A hospital had to be a de- will not be a mere asylum, but a hospi- wanted the hospital supplied with veg- parture from the old Asylum where so- tal for the cure of Patients,” they an- etables and dairy products, which Above: The Protestant Hosptital for the Insane, now The Douglas 3 Hospital (1880). Image courtesy of the Douglas Hospital website. QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS meant looking to the farmland beyond named after the doctor who was one of Protestant Insane Asylum the limits of the town. Having ac- the hospital’s founders, was designed “probable causes of quired a 110-acre farm fronting on the by the firm of Edward and William S St. Lawrence and the Lower Lachine Maxwell. Recently it was restored to insanity” (1890 - 1910) Road the founders began the task of its original glory; in 2001 the project Men Women raising funds for construction. Even in was awarded the Orange prize by the these parts they met with resistant heritage group, Save Montreal. Having Abuse of opium 26 11 neighbours, who feared the new hospi- served for decades as a social area for Abuse of tobacco 2 0 tal would be a public nuisance, spread patients, the hall has become an out- Brain tumor 2 5 disease, and decrease property values. reach and learning centre—hence an Cerebral hemorrhage 12 8 Despite the protest, the hospital was ideal venue for QAHN. Change of life 0 53 completed in 1890, only nine years af- More than a collection of historic Disappointed affection 19 23 ter the founders were incorporated, and buildings, more than a vital community Domestic trouble 55 136 140 patients were admitted by the end institution, the Douglas stands for an Epilepsy 70 42 of that year. An east wing had to be attitude. Mental health is not about be- Excessive study 19 18 added two years later to provide spe- ing sane or insane, but about wellness, Fright 13 140 cial quarters for female patients, and and degrees thereof. Which is why Heredity 120 4 soon after a west wing was built for pa- QAHN is proud to present the Douglas Insomnia 8 11 tients with less severe problems, leav- this year with a special award for 125 Intemperance in drink 195 12 ing the main pavilion for staff quarters, years of innovation. Isolated life 3 5 kitchen and dining, and surgery. After Any of us might find ourselves Flu 18 2 1910 violent cases were accommodated “afflicted,” and all of us should spend Masturbation 56 14 in Northwest House. Over the follow- far more time than we do listening to Meningitis 3 122 ing years additional buildings were our bodies and taking whatever action Mental anxiety 143 8 added, including separate quarters for seems most appropriate, from an hour’s Monotonous work 3 17 the staff and a special pavilion for the rest or a brisk walk or a change of diet Financial difficulty 78 23 important business of recreation.