Tag Archives: history of medicine

Theme Week: Infectious Disease, Contagion and the History of Vaccines

Edited By Jim Clifford, Erika Dyck and Ian Mosby Infectious disease, public health and vaccination continue to be major news stories in the early twenty-first century, from SARS in 2002-2003 through to H1N1 in 2009 and more recent concerns about Ebola in Sierra Leone, measles at Disneyland and mumps in the NHL.  In February 2015, popular Canadian magazine Maclean’s examined… Read more »

A Patchwork of Care: Midwifery in Canada

      2 Comments on A Patchwork of Care: Midwifery in Canada

By Krista McCracken The rise and fall of midwifery as an accepted profession is directly linked to the medicalization of birth, feminism, and social conditions.  The history of midwifery in Canada is similar to the rise and fall of midwifery in the United States and Europe.  For years women gave birth at home surrounded by female relatives and neighbours, with… Read more »

Thinking about Thalidomide in Transnational History: Canada and South Africa

By Christine Chisholm What was the global impact of thalidomide? On September 24th, the Department of History, the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies/Disability Studies, and the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University came together to host two speakers to Ottawa as part of a day-long meeting on the transnational history of the infamous drug thalidomide. Developed by the German company Chemie… Read more »

Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD On the Canadian Prairies

Reviewed by Joanne Epp When University of Saskatchewan professor Erika Dyck began investigating the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (commonly known as LSD) in psychiatric research, she was surprised at what she found. LSD has a bad reputation, to say the least. It’s widely seen as a dangerous drug that leaves its victims permanently damaged and prone to debilitating flashbacks. LSD has… Read more »