Health & Safety

...Yet I think I may venture to assert that it will be very difficult to mention another spot on the face of the Earth, where the inhabitants enjoy more interrupted health.

John Stewart (1)

The diaries John Stewart kept while travelling across the Island in 1806 indicate that he felt Islanders to be a pretty healthy lot. The records kept by the School Inspectors in the previous chapter give a good indication of how attitudes toward health practices have changed over the years. Before the advent of modern medicine, the St. Peters area communities were typical of most rural communities on the Island in that home remedies, midwives, and faith were often called upon to surmount health difficulties. Of all the doctors to administer to the patients of the St. Peters area, Dr. Roderick MacDonald is perhaps the best remembered. For over seventy years he took care of St. Peters area residents, and in these seventy years of service came many stories that have proven to become classics within the community.

The first doctor recorded for the St. Peters area was Dr. Dominique DuClos. A native of the Gascogne district, he obtained his formal training in France and was fifty-two when he arrived on the Island. (2) He was first stationed at Fort La Joye in 17 20, but was later moved to the St. Pierre settlement. He appears in the 1728 census as the only Doctor living in the St. Pierre settlement at that time. (3)

Before the late 18005, the medical profession knew little about anesthetics, bacteria, or sterilization. Surgery was often fatal. Patients were often bled to reduce fevers, and to slow fast pulse rates. Opium was used to calm nerves. Alcohol raised low spirits and weak heart rates. Many doctors believed that the body could only have one disease at one time.

For most Islanders, these early pioneer years were a continuous struggle to survive. The trees had to be cleared and the stumps removed. A house had to be built, firewood cut, seeds planted, livestock cared for, Wheat threshed, furniture made, meals cooked, and children raised. In such primitive conditions the difference between life and death might depend upon how quickly the doctor could attend the patient. In 1834, for example, Dr. Mackieson from Charlottetown was urgently called to St. Peters to treat a case of strangulated hernia. Since it was a thirty-mile trip, the physician did not arrive until late in the evening.

Such pioneer conditions attracted few doctors. Often, it was Women, performing midwives duties that took care of the early settlers. Mary Jackson. a native of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was educated as a Doctress at Edinburgh College before coming to the Island in 1820. (4)

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