Hamilton's Dr. Jaffrey makes waves with convalescent plasma serum during Spanish Influenza pandemic, October 1918

Ottawa Journal (30 Oct 1918:4) (dated Oct 28) - “Hamilton has every reason to feel proud...has brought such distinction on the city…" Fredericton Gleaner (2 Nov 1918) – “No man has stepped to the front more rapidly than Dr. W. Reginald Jaffrey …"

Dr. Wm Reginald Jaffrey made one of the earliest medical achievements of the pandemic of 1918, having created and used both an experimental vaccine and a convalescent plasma serum, and was one of the small handful of doctors globally to do this work. He was a skilled and keen experimental scientist, pathologist and bacteriologist, and he had studied immunology extensively, such as it was in the day. It's no wonder he did what he did. His dramatic story was played out it the press in the fall of 1918.

William Reginald Jaffrey was born in 1889 in Fredericton NB, where his family helped to shape New Brunswick history. His father William was a farmer, furniture maker and Fredericton city Magistrate. His grandfather the Rev. Wm Jaffrey was one of the original preachers in those parts, founding Holy Trinity Church in St. Mary's parish, Fredericton. The carpenter Gothic church, still standing, contains the oldest stained glass in New Brunswick. The two family homes still stand on McKeen and Jaffrey Streets in North Devon, Fredericton. One of them boasts the only "widow's walk" on the St. John River. And Jaffrey Hill is still a fixture down the road in St. John.

Reginald Jaffrey went to Queen's University and graduated Queen's Meds 1913. He was then a post-grad at New York University then held a bacteriologist position. In the spring of 1914, when war was imminent, he joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps as part of the Kingston group, which included some of the top names in Canadian CAMC history. [I have written a story about this group.] He continued to work in the U.S. until a job opening facilitated his move to Hamilton.

Hamilton and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic

In the fall of 1914, Dr. Jaffrey was hired as Pathologist for the City of Hamilton and the Hamilton General and was in charge of the city lab, replacing Dr. Deadman, who had enlisted. Dr. Jaffrey was in this position for the duration of the war, and when the Spanish Influenza hit in the fall of 1918, he was in the thick of it.

In September 1918, before the local public became infected, Dr. Jaffrey went among the first sick and dying soldiers and studied them, and it was then that he isolated the 'bacill' or 'germ'.*  He claimed to be the first to do this, in September (and it's possible that he was). No other doctors in this region were even close at that time. From the blood of the first dead soldiers he created an experimental vaccine and by the first days of October had inoculated 800 -1000 people in Hamilton. Dr. Jaffrey, in Hamilton's city lab, was weeks ahead of Connaught Labs in Toronto who ended up importing bacilli from New York.
* These were bacteria, the virus wasn't discovered until the early 1930s. A great deal was learned from the bacteria based experimentation done during the 1918 pandemic, and the positive effect in terms of a possible immune effect on pneumonia is recognized. It is interesting to note that almost every 'study' done at the time reported good results. Convalescent plasma serum research continues during the current pandemic.  

Convalescent plasma serum

Then, while others continued to chase a vaccine, Dr. Jaffrey turned his attention to the sick and dying all around him. He immediately got to work on a serum made from the plasma of those who had recovered. He had studied diphtheria serum, and he knew that plasma could hold a key. In a dramatic series of events, when a dying doctor was brought to the hospital and not expected to live, out of desperation, Dr. Jaffrey decided to use his new plasma serum on the doctor. Within a reportedly short time, the doctor pulled out of danger and showed marked improvement. After a series of injections, he continued to improve. Doctors were astonished at the results, and from then on, the serum was administered to the desperately ill, with good results reported. It appeared to have tipped the balance for those patients, staving off pneumonia, which was the real killer.

It made the front page news with articles in Hamilton and other cities, and he became a hero in Hamilton. Hamilton hospitals wanted the serum for patients, and when Toronto health authorities heard about it, they asked him to send a litre a day to Toronto. He and his assistants worked night and day in the city lab, producing serum for weeks to come. Special equipment came from Ottawa. He published several notices for donor blood from survivors (shown below). Later, Hamilton doctors said that Dr. Jaffrey had been indispensable to Hamilton during the pandemic.

Below, the first of Dr. Jaffrey's call for blood donations from survivors, 

Hamilton Herald, Oct 25, 1918.

AFTER THE WAR

After the war, Dr. Jaffrey married Alma McMahon whose father had founded Union Drawn Steel in Hamilton in 1905, a company that still exists. They moved to an idyllic farm on Creighton Rd in Dundas. They had two daughters, Ruthe and Jean, and a son, William. The family house, was well known in Dundas because of its large antenna. Dr. Jaffrey was a pioneer in wireless radio, and the family home was called OIDAR (radio spelled backwards). He was a founding member of the Hamilton Amateur Radio Club in the 1940s, President for many years, and the Club still uses his call sign, VE3DC, to this day. (2020).

Making history again

Dr. Jaffrey established a dermatology practice at 64 Hughson St south in Hamilton. He was one of the founders of the Canadian Dermatology Society, the plans being made in Dr. Jaffrey's own side garden, the site of many gatherings of Hamilton doctors, including Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw. He also traveled considerably, doing talks in various Ontario and U.S. cities on topics of immunology and dermatology, which included lantern slides, his own creations.

Dr. Jaffrey made history yet again, when in 1923, he enabled Queen's Radio (became CFRC) to do one of the very first radio broadcasts (next after CKOC) and the VERY FIRST radio broadcast of a football game.

The stories abound.

Dr. Jaffrey died in 1951 from sickness related to his work. He is buried at Holy Trinity Church in St. Mary's parish Fredericton with the rest of the Jaffrey family.

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Contact Dr. Jaffrey - drjaffrey@oxford.net

Dr Jaffrey Stories by Margaret Stowe

• Dr. Jaffrey and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918, "To a Hamilton physician belongs the honor..."
• Dr. Jaffrey and the Canadian Army Medical Corps 1914, A Picture Tells a Thousand Words
• Dr. Jaffrey Goes to the Ex. The story of VE9CNE radio and the CNE 1939