Reflections on Friendly Fire

The war of 1812, lasting from 1812 to 1814 was a result of long-standing disputes between the government of Britain and the government of the United States of America. The war gradually came to an end that permitted the survival of the small British North American colonies.

The principle land action occurred along the border between the northern states and Upper and Lower Canada. As Alan Taylor describes in his book The Civil War of 1812, the residents on both sides many of who were related or engaged in commerce across the border had no interest and in some cases opposed the war. These same civilians often lost their homes, possessions and sometimes their lives as a result of military actions. Fire between friends was not friendly.

Friendly Fire is a project developed by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in collaboration with the Museum of Health Care engaging the power of the artist as a story teller and synthesizer. The artist, Howie Tsui investigated health and medicine during the war of 1812. The resulting exhibition illuminates the brutal conditions of the body in war and the medical techniques of the period.

Fenwick Operating Theatre: a life-saving surgery in Edwardian Kingston

Bennie Stalker two weeks after surgery, October 1901, Source: Jim Bremner

Bennie S., age 10, on the 17th of September last was accidentally shot by his brother, a lad about two years his senior . . . The arm was nearly severed from the body . . . The patient’s father ascribes the arrest of the hemorrhage to the fact that there was an old man at the house who had a “charm” for stopping bleeding . . . A doctor was procured who came a distance of twenty-two miles and remained at the house for two days, relieved his suffering and applied dressings of carbolic oil to the wound. The arm speedily became gangrenous and the little sufferer was evidently not expected to survive . . . “seventeen days” after the receipt of the injury he was started on his long journey to the Kingston general hospital. Leaving his home at six in the morning lying on a mattress in a spring waggon he reached Calabogie station on the K&P railroad at noon and arrived at the hospital about 5 p.m.

These events occurred in eastern Ontario in September – October 1901. This account reveals much about the stark realities of rural Canadian health care a century ago, but at the same time, the amazing ability of the human body to survive severe trauma and the abiding human desire to care for the sick.