Hayden_Panel William Edgar Hayden Dr. Hayden, The Vatican Calls! It's not every day that Cobourg gets a call from the Vatican in Rome! But thanks to Dr. William Edgar Hayden, that did happen once. William Edgar was born in Cobourg in 1873. His education included a stint at Victoria College, in its last days in Cobourg, followed by medical training at McGill University where he graduated in 1897. Now a doctor, he began his medical practice in Roseneath, about 30k north of Cobourg where he organized the Roseneath Rural Telephone Company. His practice continued there until he moved to Cobourg in 1910. John's Drug Store, where for many years Dr. Hayden's Stomach Medicine was compounded and distributed, was at one time the oldest pharmacy in Cobourg and successfully carried on business for well over a century. It was there that the ubiquitous brown glass bottles were filled, carefully padded, wrapped in green paper, addressed and sent by mail on their journey to the far corners of the world. Even though he moved his early practice from Roseneath, Dr. Hayden's delight, as well as a possible contributing cause to his death, was the annual Roseneath Fair. He was in attendance for 50 consecutive years. But it is believed that while attending the Fair's 1950 season he caught a cold. This, along with his already failing health, was too much, and Dr. Hayden died on November 1 at the age of 77. During his forty years of practice in Cobourg, Dr. Hayden continued to be a progressive force in the medical community. Early in the 1920s he was the first local doctor to use insulin in the treatment of diabetes. But it was his special medicine, "Dr. Hayden's Stomach Medicine", which brought him worldwide success, such that an order was once received from as far away as the Vatican.