In the early part of the nineteenth century, people who wanted to become doctors went to study in Europe, especially Edinburgh which was reputed to be the best school in Europe at that time. If one takes a look at the Royal Gazette's List of Legally Qualified Practitioners in the Province of Nova Scotia for the years 1827 to 1873, one notices that until the 1840s most qualified doctors in Nova Scotia were trained in Edinburgh and London. During this time, medical schools were starting to be established in the United States. After the 1840s the trend for education seems to indicate that doctors were trained in the US at such places as Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Harvard University and the Kentucky School of Medicine. It is understandable that this trend occurred since "training in the Old Country was expensive and few could afford to go. Crossing the Atlantic took three to six weeks in a sailing ship and students had to remain in Europe until training was completed.(1)"
Not all doctors in the province were licensed. Quite a few had learned their trade by the apprentice system. In 1815 there were 21 practising doctors in Halifax that had no formal training.(2) This apprentice system angered those who had spent time and money to become doctors. They petitioned the government to pass regulations to protect patients from ill qualified people. In 1828 an act to exclude ignorant and unskilled persons from the practice of physic and surgery was passed by the government. This left quite a few communities in the province without a doctor. The following year an amendment was added, saying in essence, that if a doctor had been practising for a period of seven years prior to 1828 and could pass an examination, he then could be licensed.(3)
By the middle of the century medical practitioners were becoming better organized and in 1854 the Medical Society of Nova Scotia was formed. Some of the goals of the society were: To effect a union of all duly qualified practitioners in the province, to obtain a charter of incorporation and other legislative enactments, to ensure for medical men a just remuneration for their public services from the legislature, by all available means to prevent illegal practice in this province, and to register the qualification and publish an annual list of members with their honorary appointments.(4)
It is interesting to note in article 4 that even in 1854, twenty six years after the act to stop illegal practices, the medical community was still worried about the problem.
For several years influential doctors were trying to convince the government that a good medical school was needed in the province. Finally in 1868, the Dalhousie Medical School was established. For the first time, a Nova Scotian could remain in the province to study. Students would take lectures in primary subjects in the summer, and during the winter they would become apprentices to qualified practising physicians.(5)
Doctors had very primitive working conditions during most of the nineteenth century. The lack of hospital facilities lowered the chance of survival for the patients, especially the poor. The first hospital to be built in Nova Scotia was the Mount Hope Hospital in 1858, also referred to as a lunatic asylum. The following year the Provincial and City hospital was opened in Halifax. (6) It would be many years before other communities in Nova Scotia would enjoy the services of a hospital. "In 1894 All Saints Cottage Hospital was built at Springhill. In 1903, The Aberdeen Hospital was built in New Glasgow, and in 1905, St. Joseph Hospital at Glace Bay.(7)"
During the nineteenth century the state of medicine in Nova Scotia seems to have kept up, in most instances, with the rest of the world. It could, however, take a year or so before a new medical procedure would reach the province. New ideas were introduced in Nova Scotia by doctors who would read or hear about new procedures and then travel to where they could be learned. Upon their return to the province their knowledge would be shared with others. Doctors were still going abroad to study. Some would learn new ideas and procedures while they were away and upon their return home would enlighten the medical community.
Two of the most important medical discoveries of the nineteenth century were introduced in these ways. In 1846 Doctor Lawrence Van Buskirk heard how ether was revolutionizing surgery. He went to Boston to learn the procedure and in 1847 he introduced it to Halifax. The procedure quickly spread through the province. The same year, chloroform appeared. When J. D. Fraser of Pictou read about chloroform, he started to manufacture it. Soon doctors from across the province were purchasing it from him.(8)
Antiseptic methods of surgery or the Lesterian Principles of Surgery and Obstetrics was another medical breakthrough. Nova Scotia was fortunate to have Dr. John Stewart studying in England. Dr. Stewart was one of Lord Lister's House - Surgeons. After receiving his MD. degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1878, he returned to the province and introduced the new theory to the profession. Antiseptic methods made surgery safer and dramatically reduced the mortality rate.(9)
There were other medical discoveries during the nineteenth century, including an easier blood pressure reading instrument invented in 1896 by Scipione Riva Rocci(10) and the discovery of a smallpox vaccine in the early part of the century. But none were so dramatic or revolutionary as the discovery of anaesthesia and later the antiseptic methods of surgery.