A life insurance medical, 1848.

© 2003 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors Most physicians wonder occasionally about the practice of medicine in days gone by. What sort of relationship did their forebears have with their patients? Did they have to cope with paperwork? What was life like for the average doctor of the time? I recently obtained, for a few dollars at a stamp collectors’ auction, a life insurance questionnaire that affords a fascinating glimpse into medical practice in rural Canada more than 150 years ago. The Canada Life Assurance Company was founded in 1847. The following year their agent in Hamilton, Canada West (now Ontario), paid 4/2 pence (about $5.00 in today’s currency) to send a single foolscap-sized page from Hamilton about 50 km to Niagara (now Niagara-on-the-Lake). It was mailed May 27, 1848, to Henry Melville, MD, who received it on May 28 and completed it the next day. A brisk, professional gentleman, he was no procrastinator. Melville was born in Barbados on July 7, 1816, and obtained his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. He returned to practise in the West Indies in St. Vincent and eventually moved to Canada. He was an Anglican and must have had some standing in the little county town of Niagara, as he was one of the founders of Trinity College, Toronto, in 1852. He returned to England and died in London March 27, 1868, at the early age of 51. Ralph M. Clement, the applicant, lived about 30 km away in St. Catharines. He was 36 and, I surmise, fairly wealthy. At a time when barter was common in rural Canada, he had adequate funds available to pay a regular insurance premium. Melville noted that 6 months previously he had “atA life insurance medical, 1848