John G. FitzGerald

Who was John G. FitzGerald?

Dr. John Gerald "Gerry" FitzGerald was a Canadian physician and public health specialist who was instrumental in the control of diphtheria, first by producing and freely distributing antitoxin, and then in 1924 by using mass production to enable widespread use of the vaccine devised by Gaston Ramon.

FitzGerald, the son of a pharmacist, attended the University of Toronto Medical School, graduating in 1903. He initially studied psychiatry, and did internships at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Sheppard Pratt before becoming the clinical director and chief pathologist of the Toronto Asylum for the Insane in 1907, where he worked under Charles Kirk Clarke. In 1909, he spent a year at Harvard University studying bacteriology, and in 1910 he married heiress Edna Leonard; they spent their honeymoon traveling Europe, where he worked with Emile Roux at the Pasteur Institute.