John Fowler was born on July 3, 1888 in West Ham, London, England. He enlisted in the Canadian army, machine gun section 169th Overseas Battalion CEF Camp Niagara, on February 14, 1916. He served in England and France (including Vimy Ridge). He was hospitalized with pneumonia and suspected tuberculosis in England and France in 1917. He spent five months at the Hamilton Sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis and bronchitis. He later spent five years in and out of various hospitals in New Jersey, Vancouver, and New Zealand seeking treatment. Although he was an engineer prior to the war, he was not able to work due to his collapsed lung. He spent his working years on a small pension supplemented by part-time self-employment. He was married to Harriet Elizabeth Fox (married on November 27, 1915) and they had one son together, William John Fowler (who served in the Second World War).
Terry Bellavance was born in Follyette, Ontario, in 1950 and moved to Lugama at the age of 2, before settling in Geraldton. At the age of 5, Terry suffered a severe burn injury, which was initially treated by two doctors on a train before being transferred to Sudbury General Hospital for further care.
By the age of 14, Terry was working as a bull cook, and at 16, took on the role of a fireman for the Ministry of Natural Resources. Terry began studying Structural Engineering at Lakehead University but later decided to switch majors. On June 15, 1968, a car accident resulted in spinal cord damage, leading to an 11-month recovery period at St. Joseph's Hospital, following initial treatment at Port Arthur General Hospital. Terry was then transferred to Lyndhurst Lodge before returning to university to study General Arts, while living with a family friend.
During this time, Terry underwent an ileo conduit operation. Terry then secured a position as a Research Assistant or Coordinator at the Lakehead Social Planning Council. It was in 1969/1970 that Terry met their future spouse, and the couple moved in together, eventually marrying in 1972.
In the 1970s, Terry was actively involved with the Handicapped Action Group and successfully secured Local Initiative Program grants. Additionally, Terry played a key role in organizing a conference with the Canadian Paraplegic Association (CPA). Due to an infection, Terry had a leg amputated, resulting in a year of bed care in 1979, followed by the amputation of the other leg in 1981.
Professionally, Terry contributed as a development consultant for Castle Green Co-op and Spiritview Housing Co-op and later became the Regional Director of March of Dimes. Terry and their spouse adopted children, enriching their family life.
Terry passed away in 1999.
The Health Sciences Archives at McMaster University has a rich history that informally began in 1973. Initially driven by concerns over the lack of official records documenting the development of the McMaster Medical School and the Health Sciences Centre, an appeal was made for relevant material from individuals and departments connected with the Medical School to be “frozen” and stored. The effort to collect these records was formalized in July 1974 with the launch of the McMaster Health Sciences Archives Project, which aimed to collect, preserve, index, record, and make available essential documents such as minutes, correspondence, and articles.
In October 1974, Joan McAuley was appointed as the first full-time archivist, tasked with collecting and sorting through material. An ad hoc Archives Committee, consisting of notable figures such as Dr. W.B. Spaulding, Dr. V.R. Neufeld, and Head Librarian Mrs. B. Robinow, supported this initiative. By March 1975, the archival collection had a dedicated area in the Technical Services area of the Health Sciences Library (HSL).
By November 1975, the Archives continued to expand, with a clerk-typist hired in January 1976 to assist with typing and cataloguing the collection, followed by a cataloguer and indexer in February 1976. The cataloguing of 105 running feet of paper was completed by April 1978, but financial constraints led to the termination of the full-time archivist position. From 1978 to 1984, archival work was maintained sporadically by a reference assistant and temporary staff, with issues of space becoming an increasing concern as material from the School of Medicine and School of Nursing continued to be transferred.
Prior to her retirement in 1982, Head Librarian Beatrix Robinow prepared a report highlighting the need for a defined mandate, qualified staff, and proper funding for the Archives. Barbara Craig, an expert consultant from the Archives of Ontario was brought on to conduct an external review and concurred with these recommendations. In December 1983, the Faculty of Health Sciences formally recognized the then ad hoc Archives Committee as a duly constituted body and endorsed a properly funded and staffed archives.
In the spring of 1984, the Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals and the Faculty of Health Sciences agreed to jointly fund an archivist position to collect and manage the records of both bodies. In January 1985, Carl Spadoni was appointed as archivist. Spadoni would implement a program to restore the provenance of records and manage record transfers. He would then oversee the move of records from the Technical Services area to the newly constructed archives storage area and adjoining office June of 1985. Spadoni would serve as archivist until the end of 1986. In 1987, Marian Bonkoff was hired as temporary archivist, and a formal agreement was signed by the Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals and the Faculty of Health Sciences, giving the archives a mandate and financially committing to the archives program. A great number of records from the Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals would be deposited at this time.
Anne McKeage would succeed Marian Bonkoff in July of 1988 as the new Archivist and History of Medicine Librarian, until her retirement in Feb of 2017. Anne McKeage would be instrumental in creating an initial database program where the archives inventory could be searched, microfilming records for preservation in case of environment disasters, and utilizing student help and volunteers to index collections and identify individuals in photo collections. Anne would also develop an access agreement with the Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals to allow use of their materials with researchers, as well as helped implement a Records Management Program. Additionally, Anne was involved in early reconciliation efforts with Inuit and their records.
From Feb 2017 to May 2018, Librarian Jack Young would provide reference assistance with the archives and was Acting Archivist/History of Medicine Librarian.
Melissa Caza would be hired as the new Health Sciences Library Archivist in July of 2018.
In 2023 Jackson Charbonneau would be hired in the new full-time position of Archives Technician to expand the work being done in the Health Sciences Archives. During this same year, Joseph Iyengar would be hired as a contract Project Archivist to process the Hamilton Academy of Medicine collection.
Melissa Caza would go on leave in 2025, and Tracey Krause would be hired as the contract Interim HSL Archivist to bridge the time from May 2025 - October 2026.
Dr. Bronislawa J. Wygodzka Was Born in Warsaw, Poland, on Christmas eve, 1922, the daughter of Marek Wygodzki and Maria Wygodzka. During the war she met her husband, Stefan Lipski, and worked with him in a military division in the Polish underground army (AK, Armja Krajowa). She was trained as a sanitary nurse in hospitals while at the same time she took medical classes in the Warsaw ghetto underground medical school. After the war she went to Lodz with her husband, attended the University of Lodz and obtained her MD degree. She died in Warsaw on April 7, 1996.
Dr. Fenigstein was born in Warsaw, Poland, on May 12, 1913, to Zygmund Fenigstein and Julia Kissin. Dr. Fenigstein studied in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Warsaw before being conscripted to the Officer's Medical Academy of the Polish army in September 1937. In April 1940, Dr. Fenigstein went to the Warsaw Jewish Hospital, working as an assistant physician in the department of pathology. He taught anatomy and pathology in the Warsaw ghetto underground medical school and did plenty of research on topics like hunger disease until the first big liquidation of Warsaw ghetto on July 22, 1942. During the final liquidation starting on April 19, 1943, Dr. Fenigstein was sent south to a camp near the city of Lublin and from there he started his way through a few concentration camps in occupied Poland and then in Germany. He was liberated by the 3rd American army near Munich on April 30, 1945. After the war, Dr. Fenigstein studied obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Munich, Frauenklinik. In September 1948, he moved to Toronto, Canada, where he started as a general practitioner and then worked as a family physician. After acquiring certification in psychiatry from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Dr. Fenigstein started working as a practicing psychiatrist. He also taught at Sunnybrook Hospital as a teaching staff for many years before he resigned in 1970.
Dr. Beverley Burns was born on October 25th, 1895, in Orillia, Canada. He attended Jarvis Collegiate in 1910 and graduated in 1913. From 1913 to 1919, he studied medicine in the medical school at the University of Toronto, during which period of time he joined the British navy and served as a doctor for three years. After graduation, Burns got a job with the Pas Lumber Company in the Pas in Manitoba, where he worked for R.D. Orok in a hospital built by the company, taking care of indigenous people there. He also worked with SickKids Hospital and Western Hospital as an intern in the early 1920’s. In 1924, Dr. Burns joined the Imperial Oil Company and went to La Guintos in Peru, where he was in charge of the medical services in the hospital there. Dr. Burns got married in Peru. In 1945, he left Peru and retired from medicine.
John Edwin Hagmeier was born on August 14th, 1884, in Hespeler, Ontario, to German immigrant Abraham Hagmeier and Elizabeth Braeb. JE Hagmeier is one of three children born to Abraham and Elizabeth. He had an older brother who died during birth, and a younger brother by three years, Louis Gordon Hagmeier. Hagmeier attended high school in Galt, Ontario, and then proceeded to attend the University of Toronto in 1907, at the age of twenty-three, pursuing his medical degree in conjunction with his brother Louis. In 1911 Hagmeier graduated from the University of Toronto with his MD and interned with Dr. Frederick Newton Gisborne Starr and his service at the Toronto General Hospital, and later at the Lying-In Hospital in gynecology, located in New York. On April 13th, 1914, JE Hagmeier married Beatta Moyer, who he had been seeing since his university years. Beata and JE Hagmeier went on to have three children- a boy and two girls. On May 24th, 1914, Hagmeier and his brother Louis Gordon Hagmeier opened their own medical offices in Berlin, Ontario (Berlin was later changed to Kitchener in 1916).
In 1921, after the First World War, the Hagmeier brothers purchased and operated the Del Monte Hotel located in Cambridge, ON with the help of Jacob Kaufman, and his son AR Kaufman, a prominent manufacturer and industrialist in Kitchener. The Hagmeier brothers rebranded the hotel as the “Preston Springs Hotel,” which took advantage of the natural mineral springs it was built on to also operate as a sanatorium and spa. The Preston Springs Hotel was outfitted with an x-ray room and an operating room, and drew worldwide attention and celebrity clients, such as Dr. Banting and Babe Ruth. The Hagmeier brothers worked exclusively at the Preston Springs Hotel from 1925-1941. In 1941 during the Second World War, the Preston Springs Hotel was leased and taken over by the Canadian Woman’s Army Corp. Two years later, the CWAC returned control to the Hagmeier brothers, who later sold complete ownership of the hotel to AR Kaufman, after facing a declining number of clients at the culmination of the Second World War. After selling the Preston Springs Hotel, Hagmeier returned to his medical practice in Kitchener where he practiced medicine until 1969.
In 1960, Hagmeier’s wife Beata Moyer died from a cerebral hemorrhage. He married Margaret Smart later that same year. John Edwin Hagmeier passed away in 1982.
Harold Nathan Segall was born in Jassy, Romania on October 17, 1897, to Fischel Segall and Craina Solomon under the Hebrew name Chain Nissin Segall. In 1990, he migrated to Canada with his family, living in the French-Canadian district in Montreal. He received medical training at the McGill medical school from 1915 to 1920 and served as an assistant curator at McGill for a year after graduation. He worked briefly in the Department of Pathology at McGill before leaving for Boston, where he worked with Dr. James H. Means ‘s thyroid clinic as an assistant and later worked for Paul White and Starling in cardiology. Funded by the Libman Fellowship, Dr. Segall went to Europe in1924, during which period of time he traveled to London, Vienna and Paris, obtaining specialized training and clinical experience in cardiology. In 1926, Dr. Segall returned to Montreal. Appointed as an assistant demonstrator in medicine at McGill, he participated in the establishment of the cardiac clinic at the Montreal General Hospital, one of Canada's first cardiac clinics. In late 1920’s, Dr. Segall opened cardiac clinics at the Herzel Dispensary and the Women's General Hospital (later Reddy Memorial Hospital). From 1928 to 1929, Dr. Segall was involved in the campaign of building a Jewish hospital and later became one of the chiefs of the hospital. from 1934 on, Dr. Segall concentrated his activities at the Jewish General Hospital, where he ran the largest cardiac clinic in the city and gave extensive courses in cardiology to general practitioners. He was also the first in Canada to have an official post-graduate course in electrocardiography, which promoted the use of portable electrocardiographs in Canada.
As Montreal's first fully trained cardiologist and the leader of cardiology, Dr. Segall contributed to the profession in many capacities. He acted as an assistant Professor at the Montreal General Hospital in clinical medicine from 1949 to 1960, becoming the first Jew in the hospital to rise to the position of lecturer and then the associate in medicine. He served as the secretary of the Montreal Clinical Society for a number of years and became the president of the Montreal Clinical Society in 1937. He was actively involved in the founding of the Montreal Cardiac Society in 1946, the Canadian Heart Association in 1947, the Canadian Heart Foundation, and the Quebec Heart Foundation and became the president of the Canadian Heart Association, the Montreal Cardiac Society, and the Quebec Heart Foundation, as well as vice-president of the Canadian Heart Foundation. Dr. Segall also took a strong interest in medical history and published many works on the history of his field, including Pioneers of Cardiology in Canada, 1820-1970: The Genesis of Canadian Cardiology. He was made the honorary president of the McGill's Osler Society twice and was a curator of McGill's Osler Library of the History of Medicine.
Dr. Segall married Dorothy Violet Caplin (Dolly) in Montreal in 1934, with whom he had two children: Carol Tova Segall (born 15 Nov. 1934) and Jack Oba Segall (born 20 Nov. 1936). Dr. Segall died in 1990 in Montreal at the age of 92.
Dr. O. Harold Warwick was born in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1915 and died in London, Ontario in 2009. The “O” in his name stood for Orlando, though he was referred to as “Harold”. In 1942 he married Barbara Gzowski with whom he had four children—two sons and two daughters.
He graduated with a B.A. from Mount Alison University in 1936, followed by a B.A. in Physiology from Oxford University in England in 1938 and his M.D. from McGill University in Montreal in 1940. Between 1941 and 1945 he was a Squadron Leader with the RCAF overseas. When he returned to civilian life in 1945 he began his post-graduate medical training in Internal Medicine at McGill University in Montreal and then in London, England as a Nuffield Scholar.
By 1947, Dr. Warwick was back in Montreal as teaching staff at McGill University and a physician in the Department of Medicine at Royal Victoria Hospital. From 1948 to 1961 he was teaching staff in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. During this time he was the first joint Executive Director of the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society (1948-1955). He was also a physician at Toronto General Hospital (1948-1958). By 1955 his work at Toronto General Hospital was as a full-time physician at the Ontario Institute of Radiotherapy. When Princess Margaret Hospital opened in 1958 he became its Chief Physician (1958-1961). In 1961 he moved back to London, Ontario as Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario (1961-1965) before becoming Vice-President of the Health Sciences (1965-1971). From 1972-1980 he was a physician at Victoria Hospital and London Regional Cancer Clinic. He retired in 1980.
Dr. Warwick was a pioneering researcher in cancer control and treatment:
<blockquote>During his years at the Toronto General, the Radiotherapy Institute and the Princess Margaret Hospital, Warwick treated and studied hundreds of patients with cancer, spoke and wrote about treatment with hormones and chemotherapy agents, and published a number of papers on clinical drug trials. The most important of these established the value of the vinca alkaloid, vinblastine sulphate, particularly in patients with Hodgkin's disease. As a complete practitioner of cancer medicine Warwick had been a "medical oncologist", undoubtedly the first in Canada, for many years before the specialty was accepted and named.<sup>1</sup></blockquote>
Dr. Warwick became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1990.
- Dr. Don Cowan. Quoted in Obituary of O. Harold Warwick. http://www.inmemoriam.ca/view-announcement-195264-o.-harold-warwick.html. Accessed: July 18, 2011.
Ethel S.C. Duff (maiden name Ethel Sage Colter) was born near Balcarres, Saskatchewan on October 7, 1906, to William Henry Colter and Nellie Sage Moorehouse. As daughter of a minister who had to move every three years, she lived all over Saskatchewan during her childhood. After graduating from high school, she went to a normal school in Regina and started teaching in 1924. After the Great Depression hit, she went to United College and married her first husband, Aaron Magid (b. 1905), who was then a practicing physician at Sceptre, Saskatchewan. in 1934, the couple went to Winnipeg, where Dr. Magid practiced medicine in the north end of Winnipeg and at the same time actively involved in politics as a communist. In the spring of 1937, Dr. Magid went to Spain and served as a doctor in the front lines doing first aid work near the trenches. A year later, Ethel went to Spain to join her husband and stayed in Barcelona for a month before coming back to Canada. Two months after Ethel’s returning to Canada, in October 1938, Dr. Magid went back Canada as well. The couple went to Magrath and stayed there until 1948, when Dr. Magid bought a practice from a doctor in Niagara Falls and moved out there.