File 6 - Oral history interview with Norman Miles Guiou

Norman Miles Guiou was born February 26, 1893, in Ottawa to father Alonzo Herrett Guiou and mother Robenia Wallace. Guiou was raised and educated in Ottawa and attended Lisgar Collegiate where he gained an interest in biology and medicine after participating in science classes under the tutelage of his teacher, William Smeaton. In 1911 Guiou pursued his MD at McGill University, Montreal. During his fourth year at McGill at the start of the First World War, he enlisted as a private and in the spring of 1915 went to France with the McGill Hospital Unit, where he was eventually promoted to sergeant. Due to the great need of doctors during the First World War, Guiou was sent back to McGill University in the summer of 1916 to complete his medical program and interned at the Montreal General Hospital for 2 months. It was during this internship that Guiou learned about blood transfusions and cross-matching blood. After this internship and completion of his MD, Guiou enlisted once more, and went to France as a Medical Officer at McGill Hospital under John McCrae, just outside Boulogne. During the remainder of the First World War, Guiou originated the use of direct donor blood transfusion to resuscitate wounded soldiers as far forward as the Regimental Aid Post, using modified citrate bottles developed by Dr. O.H Robertson.

After the First World War, Guiou married Mary Elizabeth Brown in 1923, and had a son- William Wallace Guiou in 1925. In 1926, William Wallace died to pneumonia at 3 months old, and a week later Mary Elizabeth also passed away. In 1928 Guiou married Ella Loyale Mix. During this time, Guiou pursued post graduate training in New York, and went on to work at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, where he was Senior Surgeon, and then Chief Gynaecologist. He was also chairperson of the Blood Transfusion and Parenteral Fluid Committee, where he was instrumental in convincing the administration to allow nurses to give blood.

In around 1935 Guiou was inspired by the volunteer blood donors of Toc H (a veteran’s group) and convinced the Ottawa Red Cross branch under Jim Potter to start the blood donor initiative, resulting in the creation of a blood clinic in 1938 and subsequent blood drives. Thanks to Guiou, Toc H and Jim Potter, more whole blood clinics would be opened in Ontario by the Red Cross, just prior to the start of the Second World War. During the Second World War, Guiou was a member of the National Red Cross Committee on Blood for the Wounded.

In 1964 Guiou was successful in convincing Ottawa to add fluoride to its water supply. In 1985 Guiou authored the book “Transfusion: A Canadian Surgeons Story of War and in Peace”, documenting his role in blood transfusions during the First World War and leading up to the Second World War. Guiou passed away August 10, 1992.

Guiou was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada, an Honorary Member of the Canadian Red Cross Society, a Life Member of the Ontario Medical Association, and a past president of the Academy of Medicine, Ottawa. His work has been published in various scholarly journals internationally.