Duffin, Jacalyn : Langstaff: A Nineteenth-Century Medical Life

Literature Annotations

Genre	Biography (383 pp.)
Keywords	Abortion, Alcoholism, Anesthesia, Childbirth, Children, Disease and Health, Epidemics, History of Medicine, Menstruation, Mental Illness, Nursing, Physical Examination, Physician Experience, Pneumonia, Public Health, Society, Surgery, Technology, Women's Health
Summary	For forty years, James Langstaff (1825-1889) practiced medicine in a small town near Toronto. He witnessed the advent of anesthesia, antisepsis, new drug remedies, germ theory, and public health. Chapters are devoted to his management of surgery, obstetrics, and diseases, especially in women and children, his finances, and his role and that of his suffragist wife in the political and social fabric of their community. A reformer and temperance advocate, Langstaff was quick to adopt medical innovations, but slow to abandon familiar practices.
Commentary	Sources for this account of a doctor's life and practice include the testimony of two politically charged newspapers and a computer-assisted analysis of the nearly complete set of Langstaff's medical daybooks.
Publisher	Univ. of Toronto Press
Edition	1993
Place Published	Toronto
Annotated by	Duffin, Jacalyn
Date of Entry	12/15/95
Last Revised	01/31/97