SMITH, ALFRED CORBETT (1841-1909)

SMITH, ALFRED CORBETT, doctor and health official; b. Bathurst, N.B., 7 Jun 1841, s/o James Smith and Susanna M. Dunn; m. 1866, Helen Young, of Tracadie, N.B.; d. there, 12 Mar 1909.

Alfred C. Smith studied medicine with Dr James Nicholson and subsequently at the Harvard Medical College (MD 1864). In 1865 he succeeded Nicholson as physician to the lazaretto at Tracadie, but when the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph took over the institution in 1868 it was decided that his services would no longer be needed, and he was dismissed.

Smith began a medical practice in Bathurst but soon relocated in Newcastle, where he also held an appointment as coroner. A student whom he admitted in the 1870s was Alma A. Lapham who, as elsewhere noted, went on to take her MD at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia. In 1877-78 he enrolled in postgraduate studies in New York. In 1881 he was appointed to the Medical Council of New Brunswick, which was created to regulate the profession in the province. In 1884 he was granted a second MD degree by the University of Victoria College in Cobourg, Ont. In 1888 he became a licentiate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Quebec.

Smith continued to practice in Newcastle but was re-engaged on a consulting basis at the lazaretto and was concentrating his efforts more and more on the study and treatment of leprosy. In 1889 he was appointed "Inspector of Leprosy for the Dominion." As inspector he was sometimes called to other parts of Canada to investigate suspected cases of the disease, but since leprosy was extremely rare in the country the bulk of his responsibilities remained at Tracadie. He gave up his Newcastle practice and moved his family to Tracadie between 1891 and 1893. In 1899 he was appointed medical superintendent of the lazaretto, and the rest of his life's work was there.

Smith was reclusive and eccentric, and his reputation as an 'atheist' (although enumerated as a Unitarian in the census of 1891) scandalized the pious Catholic residents of Tracadie. Through his humane treatment of the lepers, however, and the many improvements which he introduced, he earned a grudging respect and acceptance. He and his wife, Helen Young, had two daughters and a son. His wife and the children were adherents of the Baptist church.