Introduction: A Physician Saving Soldiers

Lawrence Bruce Robertson worked at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children before enlisting in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in 1914.

Bruce, as he was known, was born in Toronto in 1885. Having worked in hospitals in New York, Boston, and Toronto, he studied the new technique of blood transfusion.  He was 29 years old when the war broke out and he enlisted soon after. Serving as a field surgeon in England, he brought this new technique to the front lines. Thanks to the training he brought to the British army’s medical personnel, the use of blood transfusions helped save the lives of thousands of soldiers. He continued to work in front line hospitals in France and Belgium throughout the war.

Bruce survived the war and returned to Canada in 1918, where he continued his work at the Hospital for Sick Children. Only five years later, in 1923, Bruce died of pneumonia at the age of 37, leaving a widow and two small children.