Plague by Michael Bliss

Plague by Michael Bliss

In January 1885, as the people of Montreal celebrated one of the greatest winter carnivals of the century, a deadly epidemic inched its way through the city streets. When the case of a railway porter suffering from smallpox was gravely mishandled, what followed was a “carnival of death” causing the preventable demise of over 3,000 Montrealers.

In Plague, historian Michael Bliss uncovers one of the most remarkable untold stories in Canadian history. Crafted through thorough and comprehensive research, Bliss recounts this tale of carnage and humanity in an engaging and vividly detailed format. Now updated with a foreword by infectious diseases expert Gerald A. Evans, this new edition of Plague puts forth an unflinching portrayal of the city of Montreal featuring quack doctors, French-Canadian strongmen, black-robed priests, crusading journalists, Louis Riel, and more.

Bliss depicts how every single death could have been avoided through vaccination even as the epidemic turned people against each other. The book shows how troops had to be called upon to guard smallpox hospitals against anti-vaccination rioters. In an uncanny mirroring of modern day, the whole city of Montreal was quarantined by the rest of North America as a charnel house of disease and death.

Bliss paints a picture of a Montreal routed by divisions and brought to its knees by an epidemic. By bringing to life the last epidemic of smallpox to devastate a city in the Western world, he writes a stark history of life, living, and the human condition. This book is a thriller, a horror story, and a parable about the infectious diseases that have shocked our times.

Michael Bliss was a Canadian historian and a university professor emeritus in the Department of History and the History of Medicine Program at the University of Toronto. He was the author of several award-winning books in business and political history as well as the history of medicine, including popular biographies of Sir Frederick Banting, Sir William Osler, and Harvey Cushing. He was an Officer of the Order of Canada, an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and the first historian to be inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Gerald A. Evans is chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases and a professor in the Departments of Medicine, Biomedical & Molecular Sciences, and Pathology & Molecular Medicine at Queen's University. He appeared frequently as a guest and commentator in Canadian media during the COVID-19 pandemic.