DR. HELEN MACMURCHY'S PAPER 115 



I have often heard my grandmpther tell about 

 meeting a bear just beyond her nearest neighbour's 

 gate. She had her own baby with her. I do not 

 suppose she was on her way to register that baby's 

 birth, but she might have been. And it was not she, 

 but the bear, that turned back. Bears were more 

 numerous than birth registers in my grandmother's 

 time. 



Three or four years ago there died in London, 

 Canada, Sir John Carling, Senator of the Dominion 

 of Canada, at one time a member of her Government, 

 and a Canadian who helped in his day and generation 

 to make Canada. Not long before his death there 

 died an old tree, older than he was, and that tree 

 had a place in the history of his family. When Sir 

 John Carling's father and mother were married, there 

 was no registrar to record the marriage, nor church 

 wherein to proclaim the banns, nor clergyman to 

 perform the ceremony. The Justice of the Peace 

 alone was there to marry them, and the banns were 

 written by him and published by being affixed to 

 that tree, standing by the roadside where the city 

 of London, Canada, now stands. 



In that same city of London, towards evening 

 on June 23, 1913, the Canadian Medical Association 

 assembled for our annual meeting. That day was 

 the hundredth anniversary of a walk which belongs 

 to Canadian history. Towards evening on June 23, 

 1813, Laura Secord milked her restless cow with 

 remarkable skill and began that wonderful walk over 

 which, in other and happier times, we, American and 

 British alike, can smile. 



At that meeting, a hundred years after, we had 

 a discussion on Public Health Legislation by doctors 

 from Halifax on the Atlantic, to Victoria on the 

 Pacific. Among other topics discussed was : How 

 to quarantine effectively for infectious disease. 



Dr. Wilson, of Regina, told us that in Saskatchewan 



