Amazing Health History

For a comprehensive look at how people met the challenges of communicable disease before the age of modern medicine, watch this three-part video series.

Text by Nelle Oosterom

Posted November 8, 2013

In the December 2013-January 2014 issue of Canada's History, columnist Chrisopher Moore wrote about how historians and health providers are working together to tell stories from the early days of Canadian medicine.

As Moore states, the field of medical history is exploding, from Micheal Bliss's book,The Discovery of Insulin, to books about medical views of women, nursing memoirs, hospital histories, and so on.

In the early 1980s, the Canadian Public Health Association sponsored three educational videos entited Canada's Amazing Health History: Let's Murder the Public Health Officer. 

The videos produced by Access, the Alberta Educational Communications Corporation, go back in time to show what it was like to deal with diseases like scurvy and smallpox before the era of modern medicine.

Canada's Amazing Health History: Let's Murder the Medical Officer, Part 1 of 3.
Canada's Amazing Health History: Let's Murder the Medical Officer, Part 2 of 3.
Canada's Amazing Health History: Let's Murder the Medical Officer, Part 3 of 3.

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