until 1911; he also taught at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. In 1902, he was appointed resident pathologist at Montreal General Hospital and later became assistant pathologist to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Quebec. In 1904, he was appointed an associate in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Later that year, he went to England where he studied for several months and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1905, McCrae set up his own practice although he continued to work and lecture at several hospitals. The same year, he was appointed pathologist to the Montreal Foundling and Baby Hospital. In 1908, he was appointed physician to the Alexandra Hospital for Contagious Diseases. In 1910, he accompanied Lord Grey, the Governor General of Canada, on a canoe trip to Hudson Bay to serve as expedition physician. McCrae was the co-author, with J.G. Adami, of a medical textbook, A Text-Book of Pathology for College Students of Medicine (1912; 2nd ed., 1914). McCrae was the founding member of the University Club of Montreal. World War I When Britain declared war on Germany because of the latter's invasion of neutral Belgium at the beginning of World War I (1914), Canada, as a Dominion within the British Empire, was at war as well. McCrae volunteered for service at age 41. He wrote a friend, "I am really rather afraid, but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience." He was appointed as Medical Officer and Major of the 1st Brigade CFA (Canadian Field Artillery). He treated the wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, from a hastily dug bunker in the back of the dyke along the Yser Canal about 2 miles north of Ypres. McCrae's friend and former militia member, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in the battle, and his burial inspired the poem, "In Flanders Fields", which was written on May 3, 1915. From June 1, 1915, McCrae was ordered away from the artillery to set up No. 3 Canadian General Hospital at Dannes-Camiers near Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France. For eight months the hospital operated in Durbar tents (donated by the Begum of Bhopal and shipped from India), but after suffering from storms, floods, and frosts it was moved in February 1916 into the old Jesuit College in Boulogne-sur-Mer. C.L.C. Allinson reported that McCrae "most unmilitarily told [me] what he thought of being transferred to the