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Title

Series consists of

3028 lower level description(s)

Arrangement structure

Series part of

Department of Marine fonds [textual record, architectural drawing, cartographic material] (R1191-0-0-E)

Bilingual equivalent

Station de quarantaine au Grosse Isle [document textuel]

Date(s)

1833-1839

Place of creation

No place, unknown, or undetermined

Extent

Language of material

English

Scope and content

Series consists of records created and/or maintained by the Grosse Isle Quarantine Station. The series includes the following records: passports issued by the Visiting Officer of the Quarantine Station to masters of vessels "in a fit state to proceed to Quebec", 1834 (Vols. 9-10); drafts of letters, 1836, and letterbook, 1836-1839, of the Civil Secretary relating to the Quarantine Station (Vol. 10); letters, 1837-1838, from the Inspecting Physician and the Medical Superintendent to the Commandant as well as instructions for the staff of the Quarantine Station (Vols. 10-11); register of deaths at the Quarantine Station, 1834-1835 (Vol. 11); list of river vessels receiving certificates of discharge from quarantine, 1834-1835 (Vols. 12-17); weekly returns of the sick in hospital, 1834-1839 (Vol. 11); position of vessels coming up the St. Lawrence, 1833-1834; boarding reports, 1833-1838; completed questionnaires for vessels performing quarantine, 1833-1835 (Vols. 12-22).

Conditions of access

Terms of use

Copyright belongs to the Crown.

Finding aid

Finding aid 42-1 is a typed file list. 42-1 (Paper)

Additional name(s)

Lower Canada. Grosse Isle Quarantine Station. Grosse Isle Quarantine Station.

Biography / Administrative history

The quarantine station on Grosse Ile, an island located in the middle of the St. Lawrence river, 48 km downstream from Québec, was established by colonial authorities in1832, in response to reports that new immigrants with various contagious diseases. With cholera outbreaks in 1832 and1834, and a deadly typhus epidemic in 1847-1848, thousands of new immigrants were quarantined on the island, with thousands eventually perishing. The victims of the latter epidemic were mainly Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. This period of virulent epidemics came to an end only after another outbreak of cholera in 1854.

At the time of Confederation in 1867, the Canadian government formulated a comprehensive policy on immigration and settlement, requiring the establishment of a reliable, efficient quarantine station. Dr. Frederick Montizambert, was in charge of establishing modern facilities at the Grosse Ile quarantine station, where he acted as medical superintendent from 1869 to 1899. As fewer people immigrated to Canada as a result of the First World War (1914-1918) and the Great Depression (1930s), and knowledge of microbiology and the treatment of contagious diseases was advanced, the hospital on Grosse Ile was reduced to treating minor childhood infections such as diphtheria, chicken pox and measles. New international health agreements stated that people infected with these diseases no longer had to be quarantined and serious infections such as cholera, typhus and smallpox could be successfully treated at the Parc Savard Hospital in Quebec, founded in 1907. The quarantine station on Grosse Ile was closed in 1937. Quarantine And Public Health: The Changing Role of Grosse Ile, by André Sévigny, Historian, September 1995, see Parks Canada website

Additional information

Source

Government

MIKAN no.

134551