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This is the story of one of the great events in the history of medicine. In 1847, challenging the firmly held convictions of the medical profession of the time, James Young Simpson demonstrated for the first time that a woman could be safely relieved of the pains of difficult and traumatic labour by the administration of a general anaesthetic. He later added to his fame when he introduced a new and better anaesthetic, chloroform, which soon became the most popular general anaesthetic for use in general surgery as well as midwifery. Its use was endorsed by Queen Victoria when she asked for it to be administered during the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853. The book also gives a history of a time of rapid change in Scottish society that allowed the seventh son of a village baker in a rural apart of Scotland to go to university and then become a successful physician, a medical professor at one of the leading university medical schools in the world and Physician to the Queen, all before he had reached the age of forty.
Morrice McCrae's biography of Sir John Pringle looks at his work in the mid 1700s as the most distinguished physician in London, while in the army he was responsible for major reforms in military hospitals, reducing significantly the numbers of deaths from disease.
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh was founded during one of the most disturbed and violent periods in Scottish History, yet it survived the religious and political conflicts of its early years to become the most influential medical and scientific body in Scotland. Fellows of the College created what became the foremost medical school in Europe and the English-speaking world. At the same time the College took the lead in promoting measures to raise the health and welfare of a radically changing society in Scotland.In 1681 when the College was founded Scotland was a poor country economically dependent on the products of the land; two centuries later it was one of the leading industr...
The blueprint for Britain's National Health Service was drawn up in Scotland. Early in the 20th century a sense of nationalism had secured a health administration in Scotland, separate from that for the rest of Britain and able to set its own course. By 1913, the Highlands and islands had the first comprehensive state medical service in Britain. In the Depression of the 1930s, there was already a powerful consensus in Scotland, supported by a medical profession with a long established tradition of public service, that free and comprehensive medical services must be extended across the whole country. A plan for Scotland, published in 1936, became the basis of the schemes for the National Health Services established north and south of the border in 1948.
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What can we learn from suicide, that most personal and often inscrutable of acts? This strikingly original work shows how, from treatment of suicides in historic Britain, unique insights can be gained into the development of both social and political relationships and cultural attitudes in a period of profound change. Drawing ideas from a range of disciplines including law, philosophy, the social sciences, and literary studies as well as history, the book comprehensively analyses how successful and attempted suicide was viewed by the living and how they dealt with its aftermath, using a wide variety of legal, fiscal, and literary sources. By investigating the distinctive institutional enviro...
The Canadian health care system is so indisputably tied to our national identity that its founder, Tommy Douglas, was voted the greatest Canadian of all time in a CBC television contest. However, very little has been written to date on how Medicare as we know it was developed and implemented. This collection fills a serious gap in the existing literature by providing a comprehensive policy history of Medicare in Canada. Making Medicare features explorations of the experiments that predated the federal government’s decision to implement the Saskatchewan health care model, from Newfoundland’s cottage hospital system to Bennettcare in British Columbia. It also includes essays by key individuals (including health practitioners and two premiers) who played a role in the implementation of Medicare and the landmark Royal Commission on Health Services. Along with political scientists, policy specialists, medical historians, and health practitioners, this collection will appeal to anyone interested in the history and legacy of one of Canada’s most visible and centrally important institutions.
Alvin Jackson examines the two Unions - the Anglo-Scots Union of 1707 and the British-Irish of 1801 - comparing their background, birth, and survival. In sustaining a comparison between the Unions, he illuminates the long history and current state of the United Kingdom.