Pediatric surgery approaches a 100-year milestone in 2017. December 6 marks
the centennial of the maritime
disaster off the coast of Nova
Scotia known as the Halifax
Explosion. On that date in 1917,
the French munitions ship
Mont-Blanc, carrying wartime
explosives, collided with the Imo,
a Dutch relief vessel, in Halifax
harbor. Within a half hour the
Mont-Blanc detonated, with
a blast that leveled buildings
within a two-square-mile area.
So powerful was the explosion
that the six-ton anchor of the
Imo was found in a ruined
building nearly two miles
from the harbor.
1 Historians
estimated that it was the most
powerful man-made explosion in
recorded history until the Trinity
atomic bomb test of 1945.2
Many locals watched the
conflagration from their
windows, their morning routines
interrupted by the spectacle.
Thousands of bystanders,
including hundreds of children,
were killed or maimed by the
explosion. Glass shattered into
the faces of onlookers in their
homes, leaving approximately
200 completely blind and another
500 with serious eye injuries. A
radiologist noted more than 226
fractures in his log. In all, an
estimated 2,800 people died as a
result of the Halifax Explosion.
1
With local health care
facilities destroyed and the
surviving physicians and nurses
undersupplied and overwhelmed,
Canadian authorities struggled to
bring relief to the devastated city.
A medical convoy of 40 physicians
and nurses from Boston, MA, led
by 37-year-old William Ladd, MD,
FACS, traveled by train through
a blizzard, arriving in Halifax
two days after the disaster. A
damaged but still serviceable
building at Saint Mary’s
College was converted into an
infirmary, where the team treated
victims maimed and blinded
by shards of wood and glass.
The medical convoy remained
on-site for nearly a month,
through the winter holidays.
1
The “father” of
pediatric surgery
Legend has it that the experience
inspired Dr. Ladd to devote
his surgical career to the care
of children. Robert E. Gross,
MD, FACS, Dr. Ladd’s successor
as surgeon-in-chief at The
Children’s Hospital (now called
Boston Children’s Hospital)
in Boston, was among those
who believed the origin of the
specialty began in Halifax. In
fact, Richard Goldbloom, MD,
FACS, a pediatric surgeon in
Halifax, had a chance encounter
with Dr. Gross in 1976, where
FRANKLIN MAR TIN, MD, FACS,
FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS
The Halifax Explosion
and the unofficial birth
of pediatric surgery
by Don K. Nakayama, MD, MBA, FACS
FROM THE ARCHIVES
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Dr. Ladd