All of this is to say that people’s relationships with food, feelings, and health have always been complicated. Although there’s no longer a full roster of doctors ready to get you on a diet to balance out your humours and suppress your urges, there’s still a lot of discussion around eating and emotions. “Hangrieness,” for example, is no joke. … More Just a Gut Feeling: Eating and Emotions Across Time
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
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
Did you know that the story behind surgical gloves is a love story? … More The Story of the Gloves of Love
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
Inspired by her grandmother and spurred on by her family’s experience with typhoid, Dr. June Marion James attended the University of Manitoba with the intention of pursuing a career in medicine. She was the first Black woman to attend the university, and only Black woman of the six women in its medical program in 1963. … More Black History Month: Dr. June Marion James
Dr. Hadal El-Hadi and Dr. Teresa Semalulu are the co-founders of the Black Physicians of Canada organization established in 2020 with a mission to build a community of Black physicians and physicians-in-training, and educate the Canadian health care system about the obstacles that Black physicians frequently encounter. … More Black History Month: Dr. Hadal El-Hadi & Dr. Teresa Semalulu
The Museum of Health Care is hiring for various positions this summer. Spend your summer working in heritage! … More 2024 Summer Positions Available
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
You can now listen to an audio recording of this blog post. Click play to listen. Content Warning: This article contains information that some readers may find upsetting, including discussions of misogyny, racism, and non-consensual medical procedures related to women’s health. Disclaimer: For the purposes of this blog post, the term “women” refers to persons … More Women’s Health as a Symbol of Autonomy
