By Dr. Allan Marble
Dr. Frederick William Morris was one of a handful of Nova Scotia physicians who had, by vote of the membership, his name erased from the list of members of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia.
He was born in Halifax in 1801, the son of Hon. Charles and Charlotte (Pernette) Morris, and attended King's College in Windsor where he matriculated in 1816. He then apprenticed in the office of Dr. William Bruce Almon in Halifax and, although his hand had been shoe off in a hunting accident in July 1820, went abroad to study medicine at Edinburgh University. He was awarded an MD by that university in 1825.
While a student at Edinburgh, Dr. Morris was credited with inventing a surgical saw, a description of which was published in a Halifax newspaper in June 1823. Dr. Morris continued his education by taking post-graduate studies in London and Paris before returning co his home town.
Soon after his return co Nova Scotia, Dr. Morris set up practice in Lunenburg where, in 1828, he was appointed a justice of the peace. Soon after cholera arrived in Canada in I 832, Dr. Morris wrote and published pamphlet entitled Remarks on Spasmodic Cholera. By 1833, he had moved back co Halifax and had established his own drug store on Hollis Street.
In 1838, Dr. Morris' drug score was advertising Morris' Peptic Pills, a medication prepared by the doctor himself In November 1839, Dr. Morris informed the public he intended co give a course in chemistry at Dalhousie College and, in 1840, was one of the several doctors who signed a petition to the government requesting that a public hospital be built in Halifax.
Dr. Morris attended the first meeting of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia in 1854 and served as its second vice-president from 1858 co 1860. In 1856, he was appointed the resident physician at the newly-established Halifax Visiting Dispensary located on Argyle Street.
It was while he served in chat capacity that he made the mistake of advertising, in April 1861, that he publicly endorsed a Mi'kmaq (known then as Micmac) remedy to cure smallpox. In May 1861, the medical society met and discussed the advertisement and the members - particularly Drs. James Hume and Charles Tupper - generally condemned what Dr. Morris had done.
At the May 24, 1861 meeting of the medical society, Dr. Tupper moved that the name of Dr. Frederick Morris be erased from the membership list of the society for contravening its rules. The motion passed.
In reaction to the motion, the medical governors of the Halifax Visiting Dispensary, including Dr. Daniel M. Parker, William J. Almon, and John B. Gilpin, resigned from the board and, the Medical Society of Nova Scotia ceased to hold its monthly meetings at the dispensary. Dr. Morris continued to hold the position of resident physician at the dispensary until he died in 1867.
