By Dr. Allan Marble
In 2012, while looking for historical records in the sub-basement of the MacKenzie Pathology Building, I found a composite photograph lying on the cement floor. I recognized it as the large framed photograph that had hung for many years in the main hallway on the west wall of the first floor of the Victoria General Hospital (VGH) building. But it no longer occupied a place of honour: Its frame was gone and it was lying near a puddle of water.
The Provincial and City Hospital, which opened on May I, 1867, was the first hospital established in Halifax to serve the general public. It was renamed the Victoria General Hospital in 1887.
The composite is centred around an image of the VGH as it appeared circa 1890; the image of the historic building is surrounded by photographs of the 30 physicians and surgeons who staffed the Provincial and City Hospital and the Victoria General Hospital between 1867 and 1897.
From a medical historian's point of-view, this is a unique and important photograph because it portrays not only the first assembly of medical and surgical specialists in Nova Scotia, but also the individuals who established the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University in 1868 and the Halifax Medical College in 1875.
An investigation into the origin of the 30 individuals in the photograph revealed that all but four of the physicians and surgeons were born in Nova Scotia; however, only three of them received their MD from Dalhousie University. Ten of the physicians obtained their MD from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York (now part of Columbia University), while six graduated from the University of Edinburgh, three from McGill University and two from Glasgow University. Edinburgh, London and Dublin were the most popular centres for specialty training, especially post-graduate training in surgery. Specialties in ophthalmology and obstetrics were added when the VGH was enlarged in the lace 1880s.
It didn't seem right to leave chis historic photo where it lay; the medical pioneers of Nova Scotia deserved better recognition than char. With the permission of the Victoria General Hospital Nurses' Alumni, in whose storage room I'd found the photograph, I took the photograph to Zwicker's Gallery in Halifax for an estimate of the cost of restoring the photo. Estimate in hand, I met with Dr. Torn Marrie, dean of Dalhousie Medical School, and he agreed co pay for the restoration of the photograph.
Now that it has been restored and delivered to the dean's office, the fumed photograph of the original consulting and attending physicians and surgeons of the Victoria General Hospital - an important pare of Nova Scotia's medical history -will be put on display at the Dalhousie Medical School.
