One Day's Poison

Swallow a bitter truth with One Day's Poison, a gripping archival gem from the National Film Board Archive Collection, produced by David Bairstow and directed by Donald Wilder, spotlighting the Poison Control Centre at Toronto’s Sick Children’s Hospital. This mid-century reel—shot by John Foster, scripted by George E. Salverson, edited by Tony Lower—unfurls in stark drama: a toddler gulps cleaner, a child chokes on pills, frantic parents clash with fate in staged vignettes. The camera hums—phones jangle, doctors race, antidotes pour, a day’s toll of accidental poisonings piles high. Grainy frames hum—French echoes as Les pilules de l'angoisse—a mid-20th-century lens on peril’s quiet creep and rescue’s rush. Archival Moments revives this tense tableau—subscribe to heal through more from the reels of history!