Osler Fellows Library

The Osler Fellowship is programme run by the Office of Physicianship Curriculum Development. The fellows are members of the medical faculty who work with students to encourage them reflect on the role of the doctor as healer and professional. They also happen to be very well read! We have a number of books given to the library by Osler Fellows touching on many different areas of medical humanities. You can see their book recommendations by using the list function in McGill’s WorldCat catalogue.

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First, enter the WorldCat catalogue from the library homepage.

 

 

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Then on the next page, click on “Search for Lists” on the drop-down box under “Search.”

 

 

Search for “Osler Fellows Library” and voila! You can even read in the catalogue what the fellows have to say about why they chose a particular book. Most of the books are held in the Osler Library, some in other libraries, but just note that those held in Life Sciences are currently unavailable.

 

P.S. Anybody can make a list of resources in the WorldCat catalogue. Need to keep track of course readings? Have some great sci fi recommendations to share? Check out this YouTube video that shows you how to create lists. (The look and feel of the catalogue here are McGill, are slightly different than in the video, but the actions are the same.)

 

World No Tobacco Day, 31 May

Today seems a fitting day to take a look at an oldie-but-goodie from the Osler Library Newsletter, no. 15, February 1974.

An article by then-cataloguer Janis Shore describes an exhibit on the history of smoking:

Prompted by a suggestion from one of our overseas correspondents, the Library staff organized an exhibit on the history of smoking. There was little problem in finding sufficient materials within the Library as Dr. Osler expressed great interest in the use of tobacco and selected 30 books for the Osleriana collection that dealt with this subject.

 

One sixteenth-century book in particular was responsible for much of what Europeans knew about tobacco.

Monardes, Nicolás, ca. 1512-1588. Historia medicinal. En Seuilla : En casa de Alonso Escriuano, 1574. 4º. Osler Library, B.O. 3431.

Monardes, Nicolás, ca. 1512-1588. Historia medicinal. En Seuilla : En casa de Alonso Escriuano, 1574. 4º. Osler Library, B.O. 3431.

Written by Nicolas Monardes in 1574 and titled ‘Primera y segunda y tercera Partes de la Historia medicinal de las cosas’, it states that the tobacco plant would cure coughs, asthma, headache, cramp in the stomach, gout… and malignant tumours.

 

 

Another book,  ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco’ issued by King James I of England, represents one of the earliest stop-smoking campaigns, highlighting an important premodern reason to quit.

Many monarchs were as concerned as King James because smoking had drastically increased the hazards of fire and hundreds of European villages were being destroyed because of careless smokers.

 

Reader's annotation in a 1644 compendium including a Latin translation of James's Counterblaste, among other works. Osler Library, B.O. 2550. "Tobacco! Injurious herb, an oily plant with horrible smoke."

Reader’s annotation in a 1644 compendium including a Latin translation of James’s Counterblaste, among other works. Osler Library, B.O. 2550. “Tobacco! Injurious herb, an oily plant with horrible smoke.”

 

William Osler himself recognized certain dangers related to over-indulgence in tobacco and warned against it (though he was far from a non-smoker himself).

 

Lady Nicotine in William Osler's speech "A Way of Life", 1913. Typed manuscript, Osler Library, B.O. 7653.

Lady Nicotine in William Osler’s speech “A Way of Life”, 1913. Typed manuscript, Osler Library, B.O. 7653.

Read the whole article here.

To check out other issues of the OLN, see our website.

 

McGill professor wins history of science book award

Professor David Wright of the History Department and the Institute of Health and Social Policy has been awarded the biennial Dingle Prize from the British Society for the History of Science. The prize is awarded to the best recent book that succeeds in both engaging non-specialist audiences and making a sound scholarly contribution to the history of science.

Have a look here.

 

 

Some new titles – March

How was your March? In like a lion, out like a lamb? Too long ago to remember? Lots of new circulating titles came roaring in this month! Here’s a small sampling:

 

Regimental Practice by John Buchanan, M.D. : an eighteenth-century medical diary and manual, by John Buchanan. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012.

John Buchanan drew on his experience as a medical officer in the British army to produce his “Regimental Practice,“ a treatise on military medicine. This is a new edition of this 18th century primary resource.

 

L’ergothérapie au Québec : histoire d’une profession by Francine Ferland and Elisabeth Dutil. [Montréal] : Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2012.
From Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal:

Il raconte aussi comment cette profession, pratiquée surtout par des femmes, a connu un essor majeur, comment elle est devenue une profession à part entière au Québec et a acquis ses lettres de noblesse. (Alain Bibeau)

 

L’uroscopie au Moyen Âge : “lire dans un verre la nature de l’homme,” by Laurence Moulinier-Brogi,  Paris : Champion, 2012.

Reviewed in the Cahier des recherches medievales et humanistes/Journal of Medieval and Humanities Studies (Aug. 2012) [open access]. You can also hear an interview with the author with medieval medical historian Danielle Jacquart hosted by famous medievalist Jacques Le Goff on French radio station FranceCulture.

 

Reproducing women : family and health work across three generations by Marilyn Porter. Halifax: Fernwood, 2012.

A work in the field of sociology of medicine that examines aspects of how woman understand and experience their reproductive health is understood and experienced within family contexts.  Features interviews and stories from Canadian women. From Fernwood Publishing:

…this book examines women’s experience of their “reproductive lives” in order to uncover how women’s experience is rooted in the family and among generational relationships: between mother, daughter, grandmother and granddaughter.

 

Atlas of epidemic Britain : a twentieth century picture by Matthew Smallman-Raynor and Andrew Cliff. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

A history of infectious disease in Britain over the 20th century, with historical information presented through more than 350 maps, charts, and photographs. Benedict W. Wheeler reviews this work in the journal Critical Public Health, v. 23, no. 1 (2013):121-122. [McGill users].

 

Why millions died : before the war on infectious diseases by George H. Scherr. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012.

Scherr examines historical theories of disease causation and why germ theory took so long to be discovered and accepted.

Calories and Corsets

New Year’s resolutions already a distant memory? The Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham University in the UK is giving readers of their blog a preview of Louise Foxcroft’s recent book, Calories and Corsets: A History of Dieting Over 2000 Years.

From the publisher’s website:

Calories and Corsets tells the epic story of our complicated relationship with food, the fashions and fads of body shape, and how cultural beliefs and social norms have changed over time. Combining research from medical journals, letters, articles and the dieting bestsellers we continue to devour (including one by an octogenarian Italian in the sixteenth century), Foxcroft reveals the extreme and often absurd lengths people will go to in order to achieve the perfect body, from eating carbolic soap to chewing every morsel hundreds of times to a tasteless pulp.

Read a review of this book from The Lancet, available to McGill users here.

Ready for chapter 2?  Find the book in our catalogue here.