Langstaff: A Nineteenth-Century Medical Life

by Jacalyn Duffin

Overview

A unique and readable microhistory of an ordinary physician and his community during a period of revolutionary medical change. Duffin bases her insights on a detailed computer-assisted analysis of 40 years of extant daybooks of James Langstaff (1825-1889).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802074140
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	10/29/1993
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	383
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.99(h) x 1.14(d)

About the Author

Jacalyn Duffin is a physician, a historian, and Hannah Professor Emerita at Queen’s University.

Editorial Reviews

For 40 years, Dr. James Miles Langstaff (1825-89) practiced general medicine in Richmond Hill, Ontario, and kept meticulous records on every patient. Duffin's (history of medicine, Queen's U.) investigation of this average 19th-century doctor's reaction to the medical innovations (anesthesia, antisepsis, germ theory, and public health) that dramatically transformed his practice, also yields a detailed picture of sickness and injury, addiction and mental illness, birth and death in a small farming community. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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