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Capital Lives by Valerie Knowles
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Physicians
The first doctors who arrived in what is now Ottawa were employed
by the British military to attend to the needs of workers hired
to build the Rideau Canal, Canada's first mega construction project.
In 1826, during initial planning for the canal's construction, arrangements
were made for a subaltern's command of sixty soldiers to be stationed
near each work site and for surgeons to be engaged and furnished
with the necessary medicines. These men would have their work cut
out for them, tending to injuries and treating the countless victims
of typhoid, dysentery and swamp fever. Prominent among them was
Edward Van Cortland, who subsequently served the civilian population
and lived in Bytown until his death.
Among the first civilian doctors to practise in Bytown was colourful,
but incompetent, Alexander J. Christie, who also became the settlement's
first newspaper publisher. He hung up his shingle in 1827. Most
of the medical care in Bytown was provided, however, by four nuns
of the Sisters of Charity, headed by Mère Elisabeth Bruyère. No
sooner had they arrived in Bytown from Montreal (February 20, 1845)
than they began visiting and tending to the sick at home. That May
they opened a humble hospital on St. Patrick Street. Dr. Van Cortland
immediately offered his services, inspiring other doctors to follow
his example. These included Drs. Robichaud, Lacroix, Land, Beaubien
and Hill. Dr. Hamnett Hill, who immigrated to Canada in 1837, is
one of the two physicians profiled in this section. The other doctor
is Frederick Montizambert, a public health pioneer. He settled in
the capital in 1899, a year after Dr. Hill's death.
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