}><; Community One day Jack the Brewer Came into Town With moonshine and liquor To sell all around. He lost all his moonshine He couldn't tell how But the only one drinking Was Joe the Post's Cow. Souris ' most serious problem in the nineteenth century was sanitation. Most of the highly infectious diseases were brought to the Island by sick sailors. Once here, they spread rapidly through the villages by way of wells, contaminated by stagnant water, manure heaps and privies. Souris had been given a Marine Hospital to care for sick sailors but the "free gift" from the new Federal Government was never once used to nurse one. Mrs. Robertson , in her house at the corner of Main and Breakwater, continued to care for them. A Board of Health was established in Charlottetown in the 1840s. It was empowered to distribute medicine and inoculate the children of the poor at public expense. Thirteen local Boards were created in the Province with the same powers. In 1850, Souris Board of Health members were John Mac- gowan, Alex Leslie , Patrick Scully , John Knight and Donald Beaton .7 Doctors and Epidemics: Probably the most heartbreaking times in the lives of our pioneer ances¬ tors came when they had to watch helplessly as a loved one, sick, injured or in childbirth, suffered and died without a doctor's care. It was a predica¬ ment common to rich and poor alike. Chief Justice Peter Stewart, writing to Lord Sydney in 1784, complained that there was no surgeon or physician settled on the Island. He said that, while he was ill and indeed his life despaired of, Governor Patterson attended him constantly and prescribed and administered a multiplicity of medicines for which he was grateful. He recovered only to find that the Governor had also been using his time to seduce his wife. She rode off with the Governor, taking her young son with her. Fortunately most helpful neighbours in the early communities were not so treacherous.8 Whelan Underhay, son of J.C. Underhay (1829-1919), relates that the fee a midwife charged for delivering eight of his brothers and sisters staying in the home several days each time, was a pound of tea each visit.9 Even after doctors were available, midwives were still called on in time of need. Theirs was an important role in pioneer history. The doctors who came early to the eastern end of the Island lived, for a time at least, at Bear River which was more thickly settled than Souris . The Bear River Road running north and south between Lots 43 and 44 was the highway of the day, the connecting link from shore to shore. It was here that Dr. John O'Shaughnessy , a graduate of Harvard College, came in 1837. About all that is known of him is that his wife died four years later, leaving him with six children.10 A Dr. Cornelius Richard O'Leary , who had studied in Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow, took up practice here in 1853 for a short time. He married a local girl by the name of Scully before moving to the