One Problem Leads to Another

Although necessary, Doctor Gendreau’s departure failed to give the Radium Institute the renewed energy it needed to escape this vicious circle. Problems with facilities, issues of funding and uneasy work relations prevented the centre from remaining at the forefront of the fight against cancer in Québec.

Black and white photograph of a room with lacquered wooden walls and tiled floors. The room is furnished with a hospital bed, cabinets, a wheeled table full of medical equipment, and several machines consisting of large glass and steel tanks.

Treatment unit at the Radium Institute, 1943

In 1926, relocation of the Institute to the Maisonneuve borough had forced it to temporarily abandon its role as a pioneer in scientific research while the Université de Montréal’s new medical faculty was being built. Sadly, the Great Depression of 1929 had delayed construction so much that when the faculty was finally completed in 1942, the Radium Institute no longer figured in its plans.

Black and white photograph of a room with a high ceiling well lit by two large windows filtered by thin curtains. Three beds are clearly visible in the image and arranged to accommodate machine installations on top. The three machines look like metal boxes and one of them looks like a large barrel lying lengthwise.

A lab at Montréal’s Radium Institute, circa 1935

After the Second World War, it became obvious that radium was not the miracle cure for cancer we had expected it to be. Québec doctors were already turning to simpler and less dangerous radiology treatments that did not use radium. Lack of funding for the Radium Institute prevented it from keeping up with the recent progress in the field. It could not afford, for instance, machines that used cobalt-60, a now essential isotope in the fight against cancer in the 1950s.

Montage of two images. On the left, a woman and a man are adjusting the placement of a large suspended telescopic machine. The two people seem to be pointing it toward a metal tank filled with water. On the right, a technical drawing in black on white. In English, the names of the parts and materials are listed. The image's resolution prevents reading the names of the parts, but the materials legend can be read: Lead; Steel; Heavy metal.

(Left) “Cobalt bomb” used by physics students, circa 1951 (Right) Schematics for a cobalt-60 device, date unknown

In the 1960s, the City of Montréal started to put pressure to reclaim Maisonneuve’s former Town Hall building. It became more and more obvious that the Radium Institute no longer had a place in Québec’s medical community. On March 30, 1967, Doctor Origène Dufresne permanently closed Montréal’s Institut du Radium; a somewhat anticlimactic conclusion to the first chapter of the fight against cancer in Canada.

Black and white photograph of an entrance hall leading to a staircase. The hall has a Beaux-Arts look with marble pillars and white walls. Lights are attached to the pillars and suspended from the ceiling. On the floor, very pale tiled coat of arms can be seen.

Institute’s central staircase, date unknown

Tensions Run High at the Institute Conclusion