The Lamont School of Nursing and Japanese Canadian nursing, 1925-1950
While most Canadian nursing schools upheld exclusionary admissions policies well into the mid-twentieth century, the Lamont Public Hospital School of Nursing in Alberta graduated at least 16 Japanese Canadian nurses between 1925 and 1950. Helen’s project examines how Lamont became a rare site of (at least partial) inclusion during a period of widespread institutional exclusion.…
Read MoreThe history of the Jewish quota at McGill University, 1920s-1960s
In the decades between 1920 and 1960, McGill University limited the admission of Jewish medical students through a quota system. This discriminatory measure has never been fully documented or contextualized. Thomas and his team’s project will fill this gap. They will identify the archival material that documents and discusses this policy, find printed sources, conduct…
Read MoreCollecting Canadian mad movement oral histories
Geoffrey’s project builds on Mad people’s history in Canada by collecting oral histories from key figures in the mad movement and supporting the development of an accessible Mad People’s History Archives. In collaboration with Efrat Gold and Anne McGuire, they are guided by the following questions: What are the implications of enriched discourses about Mad…
Read MoreThe tides of trust: A diachronic analysis of trust and the social contract in Canadian health journals
Public trust in Canadian medical leaders and institutions has significantly declined, impacting vaccine uptake and public health crisis responses. Mohamed’s project will investigate how foundational concepts of the “clinician social contract,” such as trust, professionalism, and accountability, have evolved in Canadian and American medical literature from 1900-2025. Using large language model (LLM)-based tools, Mohamed’s team…
Read MoreHyperemesis histories: Patient and policy perspectives in twentieth and twenty-first century Canada
Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is a pregnancy complication characterized by severe nausea and vomiting that has wide-ranging effects on pregnant people. While historians of women’s health have written at length on pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, the history of HG and broader nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP) remains underexplored, especially in the Canadian context. With AMS…
Read MoreCollecting the artificial body: Surveying the material culture of prosthetic artifacts
The twentieth century witnessed remarkable development within the field of prosthetics. This process occurred across many medical disciplines, producing a range of prostheses as dissimilar from each other as artificial organs, hearing assistive devices, and electrically controlled robot limbs. Erich and Elizabeth’s project addresses prosthetics as a singular topic using artifacts from the University of…
Read MoreDisease, formativity, and the early science of heredity: Medical students debating race, 1785-1840
Kevin’s project explores public dissertations about race presented by Edinburgh medical students in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Two student organizations, the Royal Medical Society and the Royal Physical Society, held monthly salon-style meetings at which students, some of them classmates of a young Charles Darwin, tried their hands at Enlightenment-style debate. One…
Read MoreCollecting the artificial body: Surveying the material culture of prosthetic artifacts
The twentieth century witnessed remarkable development within the field of prosthetics. This process occurred across many medical disciplines, producing a range of prostheses as dissimilar from each other as artificial organs, hearing assistive devices, and electrically controlled robot limbs. Erich and Elizabeth’s project addresses prosthetics as a singular topic using artifacts from the University of…
Read MoreDangerous beauty: The history and health hazards of the US cosmetics industry
Today, no country buys or sells more cosmetics than the United States. With annual sales exceeding 89 billion, the US beauty business is one of the most profitable in the world. It is also one of the least well-regulated. In 1938, years after doctors began warning of the rising tide of ‘poisonous’ beautifiers—face creams containing…
Read MoreJuicy knowledge: User-generated information about steroids, 1970-2000s
In 1988, the world was shocked when the “fastest man in the world,” Ben Johnson, failed a drug test after his celebrated victory in the 100-meter dash at the Seoul Olympics. Subsequent inquiries in North America showed that performance-enhancing drug use was common throughout the sporting world. While the literature on doping in sport has…
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