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Smallpox Eradication

This sketch, called 'Incident of the Smallpox Epidemic, Montreal,' by Robert Harris, shows the violence with which the sanitary police removed smallpox patients from the public to quarantine them. The illustration was first published in Harper's Weekly, on Nov. 28, 1885. PHOTO BY ROBERT HARRIS

In today’s Ottawa Citizen, Ryan Briggs and Christopher Rutty argue for the declaration of “Smallpox Eradication Day.” In the context of COVID-19, which reminded the world of the power of a novel virus to bring illness and death, Briggs and Rutty make the case that it is important to remember what was accomplished on Dec. 9, 1979.

You can read more in Chris’s article titled “Smallpox: ‘The Speckled Monster'” which was written for the University of Toronto Connaught Fund website for his series on the Connaught Laboratories.

News

Public Health Siblings: Donald and Frieda Fraser

From left to right, Dr. Donald T. Fraser and Dr. Frieda H. Fraser, with R.C. Parker and R.D. Defries at the School of Hygiene, c. 1940s. Image: Archives, Sanofi Pasteur Canada (formerly Connaught Laboratories).

Christopher Rutty is leading a collaborative effort of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the University of Toronto Archives to explore and promote the archival collections relating to public health. Chris demonstrates that much can be learned about history of public health through a study of the personal and professional fonds held in the U of T Archives.

The first of a series of articles that he is writing for this initiative is a profile of Donald and Frieda Fraser: “Public Health Siblings; Donald and Frieda Fraser: Profiles From the Public Health History Archives, University of Toronto”