OGDEN, UZZIEL, physician, educator, and editor; b. 6 March 1828 in Toronto Township, Upper Canada, one of five sons of William J. Ogden and Rebecca Ward; m. first 15 June 1852 Ellen Eliza Nelles (d. 1853) in Mount Pleasant, Brant County, Upper Canada; m. secondly 5 Oct. 1854, in Yorkville (Toronto), Caroline See (d. 1882) of Prescott; m. thirdly Isabel —; he was survived by a daughter, Annie Louise; d. 4 Jan. 1910 in Toronto.

The son of a father of loyalist descent and an Irish mother, Uzziel Ogden received his early education in Toronto Township. At the age of 17, after beginning an apprenticeship to Dr W. P. Crew of Cooksville (Mississauga), he entered the Toronto School of Medicine, where he studied under Dr John Rolph*. Like two of his brothers, Uzziel became a physician, obtaining his licence from the Medical Board for Upper Canada in 1849. He practised for about three years in Aylmer and then returned to Toronto. There he undertook advanced studies in science at the University of Toronto, and in 1855 he earned an md from Victoria College, then located in Cobourg.

At the age of 24, in January 1853, Ogden had begun what would be a 50-year career in medical teaching. At the Toronto School of Medicine, which was associated with Victoria College, he taught materia medica and therapeutics until 1870, and then midwifery and diseases of women and children until 1887. In the 1880s he was dean of the faculty of medicine at Victoria College. He and other members of the Toronto School of Medicine played a significant role in the reopening of the University of Toronto medical faculty in 1887, when they agreed to join its teaching staff. Ogden was professor of gynaecology there from 1887 until his retirement in 1903. From 1893 to 1897 he served as the second dean of its faculty of medicine, succeeding Dr William Thomas Aikins*. In his capacity as a medical teacher, Ogden influenced the education of several generations of students by promoting the introduction into the curriculum of laboratory work and microscopy and of new sciences such as bacteriology.

Ogden was one of the pioneers in Canadian medical journalism. In 1876 he founded the Canadian Journal of Medical Science, a periodical dedicated to promoting a scientific approach to medicine, and he was its editor for several years. Through his association with at least four medical journals in Toronto in the late 19th century, he strove to win the support of practitioners who opposed some of the policies called for by the province’s medical educators. His columns served as a platform from which to advocate reforms in the education, practice, and certification of physicians. His views represented the interests of graduates from medical schools as opposed to practitioners who had no academic training.

In addition to his work on behalf of reform in his profession, Ogden involved himself actively in the care of the poor and the young. In Toronto he donated his medical services to Jenny Lind’s foundation (an organization established from the donation made by the famous Swedish singer upon her visit to Toronto in the early 1850s), the Protestant Orphans’ Home, the House of Industry, the Home for Incurables, and the Hospital for Sick Children.

For over half a century in Toronto, Uzziel Ogden participated in the tumultuous changes in education and practice that marked the early years of the modern medical profession in Ontario. His career spanned the era of transition from pre-modern medical practices to the beginnings of modern medical sciences and technology in the province.

Paul Adolphus Bator