Category: History of Healthcare

Alcohol, Benzodiazepines, and Chlorpromazine: The ABCs of the History of Psychopharmacology

October 10, 2024

The story of mental health treatment in North America is a fascinating one. In many ways, the field of psychiatry has had a harder time advancing at the same pace as other medical fields due to the absence of obvious, external markers of disease. In fact, even today, we struggle to define and identify psychiatric illnesses and develop reliable, safe, and effective methods to treat them. … More Alcohol, Benzodiazepines, and Chlorpromazine: The ABCs of the History of Psychopharmacology

The Public Life of Hormones: HRT in Ontarian Communities

September 18, 2024

My project for this summer’s Margaret Angus Research Fellowship will try to unearth some of this history, looking at hormones’ incorporation into physicians’ education, hospitals, and peoples’ daily lives. By investigating the education of physicians at Queen’s medical school, records of their practice and training, news sources like the ones considered here, and 2SLGBTQI+ community records and ephemera, I will be looking into the local history of HRT in Kingston and Ontario more generally. … More The Public Life of Hormones: HRT in Ontarian Communities

Traversing the Transplant Timeline: The Story of the First Successful Kidney Transplant 

April 23, 2024

In 1954 something incredible happened. What had once seemed impossible became a reality, setting the groundwork for one of the biggest revolutions in 20th-century medicine. This is the story of the first successful organ transplant.  … More Traversing the Transplant Timeline: The Story of the First Successful Kidney Transplant 

Black History Month: Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk

January 30, 2024

Born and raised in Whitney Pier, Nova Scotia, Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk became the first Black graduate of the Nova Scotia Hospital School of Nursing in 1954. She also went on to earn a postgraduate midwifery diploma and psychiatric nursing certificate, and diploma in adult education. Clotilda is also the only Black President in the history of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Nova Scotia (now known as The College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia) to date.  … More Black History Month: Clotilda Douglas-Yakimchuk

Black History Month: Dr. Douglas Salmon

January 30, 2024

As one of only four Black students at the University of Toronto’s medical school, in 1955 Dr. J Douglas Salmon graduated and would go on to become president of Scarborough Centenary Hospital’s medical staff, and chief of general surgery – the first black person in Canada to hold these positions. He also became one of the first surgeons in Canada to treat people who were morbidly obese with the then life-changing treatment, gastric bypass surgery. … More Black History Month: Dr. Douglas Salmon

Scents & Sensibility: Awakening the Fashionable History of Victorian-Era Smelling Salts

December 27, 2023

Fainting at the least hint of shock became one way that women could show their delicate and frail nature; to swoon was not only an accepted social cue, but also downright ladylike.  Coupled with the prevailing corset fashion of the era, which shifted ribs, constricted lungs, and compressed organs, this created a perfect recipe for a social fainting phenomenon.  … More Scents & Sensibility: Awakening the Fashionable History of Victorian-Era Smelling Salts