JOHN BERNARD GILPIN, physician, surgeon, naturalist, author, and artist; b. 4 Sept. 1810 in Newport, R.I., fourth child of John Bernard Gilpin and his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Miller; m. 13 Aug. 1846 Charlotte Smith (d. 1851) in Digby, N.S., and they had two sons; d. 12 March 1892 in Annapolis Royal, N.S. John Bernard Gilpin’s father, who had come to Philadelphia from England in 1783, held the office of British consul at Newport, R.I., from 1802 to 1832. His son was prepared for college there and took his bachelor of arts degree at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., in 1831. After a one-year apprenticeship in the office of Dr T. C. Gunn in Newport, he entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his md in 1834 with a graduating essay entitled “Old age.” His whereabouts for the next few years is unknown, but in January 1838 he is recorded as practising medicine in Annapolis Royal. Gilpin’s father had retired there in the spring of 1833 to be near two sons of his first marriage, Edwin and Alfred Gilpin, both Anglican clergymen. Annapolis Royal in 1838 was a town with slightly more than one thousand inhabitants and was served by a single doctor, Robert Leslie. Four other medical practitioners met the needs of the farming districts surrounding the town. In 1845 Gilpin travelled to London, England, where the following January he passed the examination qualifying him as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He returned to Nova Scotia early in 1846 and became one of only five doctors in the province who were officially qualified as both physicians and surgeons. Following his marriage later that year, Gilpin moved to Halifax and set up practice on Barrington Street. In 1847 he served as assistant health officer for the port of Pictou, helping with the serious outbreak of typhus there. A member of the Medical Society of Halifax, he was involved in the reorganization of that body as the Medical Society of Nova Scotia in 1854. Although Gilpin’s contributions to the medical profession in Nova Scotia were important, it is as a naturalist that he is chiefly remembered today. He had probably moved to Halifax in order to be close to others with similar literary and scientific interests. He remained a widower after his wife’s early death in 1851, and during the next 40 years he became deeply engrossed in the study of the fauna of Nova Scotia. A founder of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science (later the Nova Scotian Institute of Science), on 2 Feb. 1863 he presented the first paper read before the society, on the common herring. As a member and president (1873–78) of this organization Gilpin gained a solid reputation in Canada and the United States in the latter half of the 19th century as a naturalist and zoologist. Over 20 years he gave a total of 34 papers, which were published in the transactions of the institute. His subject-matter included birds, fishes, seals, walruses, moose, beavers, serpents, and fossils, with a lengthy series being devoted to the mammalia of Nova Scotia. He also wrote on the Stone Age and on the Indians of the province. His lecture Sable Island: its past history, present appearance, natural history, &c., &c. was published in Halifax in 1858. The pamphlet also included a description by Joseph Darby of the shipwreck of the schooner Arno in 1846 and a poem by Joseph Howe*. Gilpin’s papers were frequently illustrated with his own drawings. In 1892 Martin Murphy, president of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, observed, “The museum has been served by his brush as well as by his pen, for he possessed the unusual accomplishment of an accurate and artistic reproduction in colors of any subject being treated of in his papers.” An obituary in the Halifax Herald praised “his spirited sketches of the wild, typical ponies of Sable Island,” which “still bear testimony to his skill in portraying animal life.” A foundation fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, established in 1882 [see Sir John William Dawson], Gilpin retired in that year to Annapolis Royal, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Following his death in 1892, he was buried in the old parish cemetery there beside his wife and infant son, Bernard. Tributes to Gilpin recognized his contribution to the natural history of Nova Scotia. Harry Piers, in a series of profiles of past presidents of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, described him as “probably the best student of the higher animals we have had. He possessed a racey, picturesque and attractive literary style, coupled with close accuracy in his statements and determinations. Furthermore he was a good draughtsman, wielding a ready pencil and brush, which assisted in illustrating his lectures.” In 1910 Dr Donald Alexander Campbell observed in the Maritime Medical News that “he was constantly doing his utmost to assist and encourage the study of Natural History in the Province, a

Reading of local history provides stories of the impact of the flu in 1918. One passing reference was to a mother and child that died and were buried together. Another, in a Chisholm history book, refers to a home less than a kilometer from where I live where a mother and three children died within a three-week period.

The book, Disaster Canada (Lynx Images 2000) describes how a mail boat delivered mail and supplies to small ports in Labrador. People soon got sick and many died. In many cases, survivors were unable to cut firewood or hunt, and died from the cold or starvation. Some hunters disappeared in the bush and were never heard of again. In the village of Okak, only fifty-seven of 266 survived. The mother and father of one eight-year-old girl died and the hungry dogs ate their bodies, but she survived in minus 30-degree temperatures for five weeks. In November 1918 a plea for help went out to the Hudson's Bay Company went out, but they curtly replied that there was a shortage of fuel for their ship, and that they could not come. In the spring of 1919 they finally came with a doctor and a load of lumber to make coffins. By then, one third of the Labrador population had died.

Pettigrew, in her book, talks about the many bizarre elixirs, potions and "vaccines" that were used to try to help with the Spanish Flu epidemic. In 1918 Prohibition was in full force and alcohol could only be acquired for medical purposes. This has an interesting connection to a story in the book my son and I published called My Childhood in the Bush. Eight year old Rebecca Nolan was living at Brent on the CNR line in northern Algonquin Park in 1918 where returning troops from Europe stopped regularly. In late 1918 her father and mother, and everyone else except a couple of workers and Rebecca herself, got sick. North Bay's original CNR doctor Archie McMurchy came to Brent with a special train to take everyone to North Bay. Everyone except the Park Ranger and his wife refused to go because of the serious conditions in North Bay.
Eight-year-old Rebecca Atkins and her parents at Brent prior to the flu outbreak there.

Dr. McMurchy gave eight-year-old Rebecca quinine tablets and rum, and taught her to prepare regular medications for her parents. She did this faithfully until she became ill. A plan was established that a white sheet would be put up on the window of any house where someone died. Fortunately, everyone recovered.

The world is becoming a potentially dangerous place because of such diseases, but we are fortunate that the World Health Organization, governments and agencies like those we have seen in operation recently have plans to minimize the problem. AIDS, Ebola, West Nile and several other problems have been identified, and a system is in place to deal with the "big one." The SARS crisis has served us well as a dress rehearsal, and we can rest assured that, whatever happens in the future, the best will be done.
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