Alan Brown
Section 29, Lot 178
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.
Born in Clinton, Ontario in 1887, Alan Brown graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto with honours and then spent three years at the Babies’ Hospital in New York City. He did his post-graduate work in several famous paediatric hospitals throughout Europe, before returning to Toronto where he joined the staff of the Hospital for Sick Children, then on College Street.
Appalled at the hospital’s high mortality rate, the determined doctor was permitted to implement radical changes and within a year, the death rate at the hospital was halved. He was soon appointed the hospital’s physician-in-chief. He was also instrumental in forcing the provincial government to pass compulsory pasteurisation legislation to help stop the incidence of tuberculosis in children.
Perhaps Dr. Brown is best known for his involvement in the development of a new cereal mixture for children, that contained vitamins and mineral elements. Dr. Brown had hired the product’s co-creators, Doctors Theo Drake and Fred Tisdall (Section 29, Plot 213) to help him improve the situation in the hospital wards and they came up with a revolutionary product they dubbed Pablum (from the Latin “pabulum” meaning “food”). Pablum was responsible for saving thousands of youngsters from death and disease. The royalties resulting from its sale went to help further research at the hospital as well as assist in the financing of a new Hospital for Sick Children on University Avenue that opened in 1951. Dr. Brown died on September 7, 1960.
Mike Filey
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide
Second Edition Revised and Expanded