From the News

Dated: March 6, 1919

SPURNED BY TORONTO, STARTS A NEW CAREER

Sergt. Mayell, Sightless Masseur, Will Now Try Chicken Farming.

Toronto is to lose one of her "first citizens."   Sergt. Bertram Mayell, late of the Princess Pats, and the first Canadian to take the famous massage course at St. Dunstan's School for the Blind, in England, leaves this city for Victoria, B.C., before the 1st of April.  He is leaving the city because, although a graduate of what is perhaps the finest massage course in the world today, he has been unsuccessful after a year's practice in Toronto.

The chief reason the sightless veteran gives for this is lack of cooperation on the part of Toronto physicians.  Scores of Toronto doctors, he states, have without solicitation offered to send him patients, where the massage treatment would be superior to any other.  But their promises in the great majority of cases have been unfulfilled.

Needed for Civilians.

"I cannot understand how it is," stated Sergt. Mayell to The Star, "that the massage treatment is absolutely indispensable in military hospitals, and yet not necessary in civil life.  One would think that a treatment that has saved the use of body and limb to so many thousands of soldiers, would be just as needful for civilian ailments.  Of course, it is.  Yet even the physicians who voluntarily offered to send patients have not done so.  Practically all of my new clients come to me on the recommendation of persons whom I have already treated."

One would think that the masseur who treated Sir Arthur Pearson, proprietor of Pearson's magazine, and Hedley Smith, one of the proprietors of the famous Pathe Freres moving-picture concerns, would be competent to attend the ailments of Toronto's citizens.   Sergt. Mayell had both these distinguished men under his personal care, while conducting a private practice in London, England, and yet, now that he has come to Toronto with his almost unexcelled training and talent in this direction his practice, has been financially speaking, too little of a success to warrant him continuing it.  He has had many cases where phenomenal success has attended his treatment of both children and adults.

Tore Out Both Eyes

Sergt. Mayell enlisted in the 28th Battalion, from Regina in October 1914, and was transferred to the Princess Patricias on the 1st of Jan., 1915.  He went into action with this battalion, and on the 8th of May of that year high explosive splinters tore out both eyes, robbing him entirely of his sight.  Comrade George Pearson, of the Central branch of the G.W.V.A., was in the same trench with Sgt. Mayell, when the latter received his wounds.  Mr. Pearson, a few days ago described this action, the second battle of Ypres, to the local Canadian Club.

Following his wound he was three months in hospital, and then took an eight months' course at St. Dunstan's, being the first Canadian to graduate from that institution with the diploma of the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses, the English parallel of the world renowned Swedish certificate.  He was the second Canadian to enter St. Dunstan's, beginning his studies about August 1st, 1915, and graduating in June, 1916.  Following his graduation he established a private practice in London, and for a year afterwards treated 20 to 30 patients daily in the King Canadian Red Cross Hospital, Bushey Park, London.  He arrived in Canada in May, 1917, fully qualified to earn his living at his new profession, but has been unable to succeed.

Will Become a Farmer.

"The work is at low status here," he explained smilingly, "there is no organization of masseurs or masseuses, and the doctors are apathetic."

Before the war Sergt. Mayell was a farmer in the West.  His Canadian fiancee went to the Old Country, and the two were married in Glasgow, the home of her parents.  Soon Mr. and Mrs. Mayell, with their little 18 months old son, Ronald, will have established themselves in Victoria, where the indomitable soldier, without complaint, will engage in gardening and chicken farming.