No comments about An Epitaph for German Judaism: From Halle to Jerusalem (Modern Jewish Philosophy and Religion: Translations and Critical Studies).

5 comments about William Osler: A Life in Medicine.

1. I purchased 5 of these books as a "Thank you" to 5 excellent physicians who supported me as an oncology nurse practitioner. Since I was retiring, I wanted to say "Thank you" and each physician was thrilled to receive a copy.



2. This is one of the most absorbing and readable biographies of Sir William Osler. Michael Bliss' book is considerably shorter and easier to read than the monumental Pulitzer Prize winning book by Harvey Cushing, Life of Sir William Osler.
   As a retired general practitioner, Sir Willam's life and example is particularly close to what I have been practicing for the past forty years. When one reads this account one can begin to fathom this great man's ability, perception of human suffering, natural curiosity and dedication to the patient's welfare. This book reveals to us some of his other unique abilities and qualities namely his bibliophilia,vast reading, writing close to 170 papers, teaching scores of students, and having the honor of holding responsible and prestigious positions in the fields of medicine and the humanities. In addition to all these were his literally developing Johns Hopkins Hospital and University into the best in the world in his time and marshalled the achievements of hospitals in Philadelphia, Montreal and Toronto. As Regius Professor at Oxford from 1915 to 1919 he was a towering giant . He therefore stands in my eyes as the greatest doctor of the 19th.,20th. and perhaps the 21st. centuries. Not Sydenham, not Hunter, not even Lister could do all that Osler managed to do and do so with so much energy, dedication and humility.
   We doctors who were not with him on hospital rounds, clinical demonstrations,lectures, lunches, teas and dinners and amazing conversations with him are very envious of those who were blessed with these opportunities.
   He set a living example to his protege the way a doctor should live and work to earn that mark of nobility that the profession has had for centuries. He was the healer of all healers and inspired many to literally follow his foot steps. To mention two such would be too few but the likes of Harvey Cushing and Wilder Penfield come to mind and they both became superb neurosurgeons even though their hero, Osler , was an internist. I was astounded to read the great numbers of international luminaries who were treated by him. He ministered to doctors and their families, medical students and staff and was thus a doctor's doctor both as a teacher and physician.
   His love of little children, the youth, the aged and his own extended family was exemplary to say the least.
   How sad that such a doctor left the world at a mere 70 years of age. Three great nations, Canada, the U.S. and Britain all claim him as their own son. That honor and adulation no one and no doctor has the distinction of achieving. He served all of them so well.
   We all stand in awe of this stalwart of modern medicine and Michael Bliss has opened our eyes to this individual so well.



3. Despite almost a century since his death, William Osler persists as the `the grand old man of medicine', a life devoted to doctoring and doctors, who has supplied inspiration for many generations of physicians in the United States, Canada, Britain and the Continent.
   
   Osler's life was a remarkable achievement as a medical teacher, (important in America in giving medical students real medical experience, as clinical clerks in hospitals) physician, prolific author, councillor, researcher and mentor to literarily thousands of men and women embarking on the profession in the medicos. It was the philosopher and great teacher, William James, who commented to Osler, marvelling and his energy and interests. Osler replied, that he was terribly conscious of time that it was a commodity he wished he could buy more of, as there was so much he could do with it. (p. 502) Osler's zest for work and unbounding passion for medicine set the standard for medical women and men in the twentieth century.
   
   After reading Michael Bliss's brilliant biography of the pioneering neurosurgeon, Harvey Cushing, another remarkable medical man, and Osler's first biographer, it seemed only natural to read about Cushing's mentor. Both biographies are first rate and it really would be a disservice to compare them, because both works are thorough, educational, inspiring and definitive contributions to the greats of medical history.
   
   Osler is the author of the currently classic text, The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which became the core textbook for students and practicing physicians during his life. It became a yearly task for the doctor to revise later editions, (sixteen in all) and in present time, for modern doctors, according to Bliss, has now become patient-centred and a historical document of the state of 19th century medicine.
   
   Osler is famous for his bedside manner, the notion of empowering patients and autonomy in clinical practice. The man's faith in medicine and the legendary "aura" of healing that surrounded him, causing patients to regain the faith in their own healing ability, has caused a renewed interest in humanities joining forces with science, a proper balance, ensuring an optimal treatment and outcome for the patient.
   
   How did the man accomplish so much in one lifetime? Similar to the 18th century philosopher, Immanuel Kant, people close to him could adjust their clocks to the second by the philosopher's movements. Osler was the same: his day was usually planned down to the minute, rising at seven and retiring by ten-thirty everyday.
   
   He was also a man born with writing disease, never a day would go by without putting pen to paper, as his articles, correspondence, speeches and books certainly reveal. A consummate bibliophile, his collection of medical texts and related subjects, at the end of his life reached eight thousand, taking many years to catalogue, ending up being donated, as was his wish, to McGill University.
   
   An excellent biography of an extraordinary man of medicine.



4. William Osler remains an iconic figure in American medicine. Osler is taken often to epitomize the physician who brings a crticial and scholarly approach to the bedside in conjunction with compassion and empathy. In this very well written biography, Bliss traces Osler's life, his achievements, and examines how he assumed iconic status and whether or not this status is deserved. Bliss is particularly well equipped to undertake this task. A well known specialist on Canadian history, he has written other fine books on medical history in a Canadian context.
   Bliss presents Osler as a product of the rising British Victorian middle classes. The remarkable son of impressive parents, Osler was the son of an English naval officer turned Anglican minister and his equally intelligent wife. Raised in rural Ontario when this part of Canada was still a frontier, Osler's parents inculcated respect for learning, dedication to hard work, and clearly taught the value of community service. William Osler was not an outlier in this family. One of his brothers became a prominent businessman and two other brothers became important figures in Canadian law and politics. An early interest in natural history (biology) lead Osler to medicine. Trained in then provinicial Toronto and Montreal, he finished his education in some of the great teaching hospitals of Europe. Spotted by his mentors in Montreal as a future star, he was brought back to McGill to teach at the modest medical school. At McGill, Osler launched the career of careful clinical observation, pathologic correlation, and teaching that would propel him to the apex of his profession. His growing reputation led to appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and then to the nascent Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. At Hopkins, he became the first Professor of Clinical Medicine and introduced the teaching methods that revolutionized medical education in the USA. Relatively little of what Osler did was truly novel. Clinico-pathologic correlation has been standard method for expanding medical knowledge for decades and the clerkship method of teaching had been used in Britain and continental Europe for some time. Osler carried these methods to new heights. In his clinical practice, in his teaching, and in his great textbooks, Osler summarized and codified almost all of 19th century medicine. He was not a notable scientist, though his description and characterization of several important clinical conditions was very valuable, but he brought the best science of his time to the bedside and set clinical medicine on the course of drawing from systematic scientific work. In terms of his personal accomplishments and the example he set for his numerous trainees, his impact on 20th century medicine was immense.
   Osler's reputation as a fine physician was deserved. Bliss shows him to be an warm and compassionate individual who was regarded often with great affection by his patients. Blessed with a generous and kindly personality, he enjoyed a wide circle of friends and a happy family life. In important respects, Osler exemplifies some of the most important and most admirable features of the Victorian period. His sense of virtue and service was very strong but he was not a prig and had relatively liberal values. Traveling in Germany towards the end of the 19th century, he noted and deplored rising anti-Semitism. He appears to have been devoid of overt anti-Semitic feelings and had a number of Jewish trainess, all of whom he appears to have treated with his usual combination of high expectations and civil behavior. Alone among the faculty at Hopkins, he supported the admission of women, though he did not really believe in female equality. Bliss spent years immersed in Osler's extensive writings and tremendously extensive correspondence, clearly likes and admires Osler, and his regard for Osler is reflected in the tone of this biography.

   Osler was also that quintessential Canadian, the provincial boy who achieves fame on the wider stage of the USA or Britain. At the peak of his fame, he was the best known physician in the English speaking world and something of a minor celebrity.
   Like all fine biographies, this book is about more than its central subject. It is valuable on the development of Canadian society, the growth of universities in the USA and Canada, the history of medicine, and the devastating impact of WWI.
   This will be the standard biography of Osler and it is worthy of its subject.




5. This is, quite honestly, a hefty tome, but no less may be expected when writing about the greatest American physician who ever lived. Bliss presents us with a detailed, well-paced, and engaging biography of Dr. Osler, from his childhood days in Canada to his final years at Oxford. Being both a student of medicine and a Baltimorean (currently), I took a special interest to the chapters devoted to his post as the first chief of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

   Unlike the time-honored work by Cushing, Bliss's book is no hagiography; it makes no false overtures about Dr. Osler's iconic grandeur, instead letting the reader discover for himself (or herself) that Dr. Osler was, in fact, as great a man as people say he was. (All that being said, I still value the two-volume Cushing biography, and there is no way I will rid myself of the precious first-edition set I snatched up last year at the Maryland Historical Society bookshop!)

   One need not practice Oslerolatry (that is, the veritable worship of Dr. Osler expressed by many of the older faculty at Hopkins and elsewhere) to appreciate this book, though having an interest in medicine and/or medical history may help. Critics often lament that American doctors no longer have any professional integrity, and that taking the Hippocratic Oath is a sham. Read this book, and discover how great the American physician can be...and THEN lament that they don't make them like they used to.

No comments about Atlantic Hearth: Early Homes and Families of Nova Scotia.

No comments about ONE WHO ALMOST MADE IT BACK: The Remarkable Story of One of World War Two's Unsung Heroes, Sqn Ldr Edward 'Teddy' Blenkinsop, DFC, CDEG (Belge), RCAF.

No comments about Frank Barr: Bush Pilot in Alaska and the Yukon (Caribou Classics).

1 comments about The Company of Adventurers: A Narrative of Seven Years in the Service of the Hudson's Bay Company during 1867-1874.

1. Isaac Cowie sailed to Canada from the Shetland Islands in 1867 with prospects of joining the Hudson's Bay Company. After arriving at York Factory via Hudson Bay, he was assigned to Fort Qu'Appelle, where he remained until 1874, the last two years as manager. Cowie kept a journal (now lost) during these years from which he wrote a series of articles for a Manitoba newspaper that was published in 1912; a year later the series was issued in book form, a reprint of which is presented here.
   
   The first hundred some-odd pages include a brief history of the HBC and Cowie's voyage to Canada. Once at Fort Qu'Appelle in southern Saskatchewan the book's focus on the life of an HBC official and western frontiersman begins in earnest. Cowie relates fur trading activities, frequent trips to outlying posts (one in the middle of a blizzard), and relations with the Indians, especially the Metis - mixed-bloods who began to see themselves as a separate tribe. Chapters are divided into numerous subsections, often each one relating a separate vignette or impression. Cowie is content with describing routine business, occasionally mentioning an interesting character here and there. No one will accuse him of exaggeration or embellishing incidents to make them more dramatic - that's just not in his character. The most valuable information in the book has to do with the Indians and the growing unrest that was occurring across the plains after 1869, especially with some of the tribes (Sioux, Cree) who had ventured across the border from the US hoping for better treatment, which was wishful thinking only. The book ends in 1874 when Cowie was relieved of his duties and, as he says, "the Mounted Police took effective possession of the plains." Not the most exciting first-hand account of one's experiences in the western regions, it's still a valuable account of life on the Canadian plains and in the employ of the HBC.

2 comments about June Callwood: A Life of Action.

1. Teacher, librarian, and award-winning author Anne Dublin presents June Callwood: A Life of Action, a biography for young adults about the remarkable life of June Callwood, one of Canada's greatest journalists and activists. Callwood grew up poor during the Great Depression, in farm communities and small towns of Southern Ontario, yet through compassion, hard work and sheer grit she made a difference in thousands of lives around her. She founded more than 50 activist groups, including Jessie's, a center that gives housing and support for teen parents; Nellie's, a shelter that protects abused women and children from violence; and Casey House, the world's first special-care hospice for people with AIDS. Her journalism career included an interview with a young Elvis Presley, and for a time she even hosted her own television show. Black-and-white photographs illustrate this inspirational tale of an exemplary life, highly recommended for school libraries.



2. "Each person is like a stone in a pond...Individual actions, good or bad, send out tiny ripples that change the surface of the public pond. People, by choice, can spread warm understanding or cold indifference."--June Callwood
   
   June Callwood, a Canadian journalist and activist, has led a very active life. Having written articles about everything from celebrities to censorship, and over thirty books dealing with topics like Canadian history and the battle against AIDS, Ms. Callwood has definitely kept busy.
   
   JUNE CALLWOOD: A LIFE OF ACTION is a comprehensive biography of the woman who helped establish over fifty different organizations, such as Digger House for homeless youth and Casey House for people with AIDS. She's also a Companion of the Order of Canada, which is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a Canadian citizen, and has a park and street named after her.
   
   Filled with dozens of photographs, a timeline of her life, and selected honors she's received, this is a great book for anyone looking for information specifically on Ms. Callwood, or for those interested in Canadian activists.
   
   Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

No comments about Arctic Artist: The Journal and Paintings of George Back, Midshipman With Franklin, 1819-1822 (Rupert's Land Record Society Series).

5 comments about As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl.

1. Wow!!! What a read, my friend Phil was raised as a girl for the first 25 years of his life and even after so many therpists, years of counselling & several operations to re-correct "himself" he still feels more comfortable keeping his long hair and still deliberates whether he can ever make that leap and have his breast implants removed. I am so glad I have found this book, now Phil my friend I truly have an insight into what life has dealt you. I only wish I could give this book 6 stars.



2. David took his own life in 2004 at the age of 38. His twin brother died a couple of years before (maybe) also of a suicide. The story of David did not end well, as much as we hoped it would.



3. This was an interesting book in that it told the story of the tragic childhood of David Reimer in addition to summarizing the background of John Money's theoretical underpinnings of his belief in early childhood reconstructive surgery. The fact that Reimer's childhood was being described as a total success by John Money when in fact the reality of the situation was the exact opposite is pretty shocking. Amazing how unethical this guy was. Your archetypal mad scientist.



4. Anyone who looked through a serious book on sex and gender in the 1970s was bound to come across the landmark John/Joan case. It seemed to indicate that children's sense of their sex (i.e., whether they were boys or girls) was soft and malleable. Counterintuitive and Marxian as that sounds now, it was presented as enlightened, forward-looking thinking.
   
   By the time John Colapinto published his expose of the John/Joan case in Rolling Stone in 1997, the jig was already up. Intersex advocates were loudly complaining that they had been mutiliated and tinkered with. The weight of evidence now suggested that for most people, one's mental sex was as fixed at birth as one's physical form.
   
   This book expanded on the original article by naming the actual principals in the tale and describing John/Joan's long and grueling experience of being a Johns Hopkins guinea pig: the transcontinental trips to the doctor once or twice a year, the psychological bullying, the constant reminder that you are some sort of freak.
   
   The article and the book are both heavily biased against John Money, the eminent New Zealander who supervised the experiment, and suspiciously eager to believe any scurrilous tales that his colleagues might offer (e.g., that Money had sexual relations with some of his students; the implication is that this sort of behavior is transgressive to an extreme, seldom encountered among academics and sex researchers!). To which I say--well, whether John Money was good or evil, he accomplished his main objective, which was to push back the frontiers of ignorance about sexual identity. We can now feel fairly confident in saying that you cannot just change someone's sex, willy-nilly, and force the mind to go along. More pertinently, if a child who appears to be female insists that she/he is really a boy, that child should not be regarded as delusional.
   
   Overall, the basic narrative of the Reimer family is not credible, and this is the basic weakness of the book. After all those trips to Baltimore, and the crushing awareness that "she" was some sort of sexual freak, Brenda/David Reimer certainly had some inkling of the truth long before she was 13. At the very least, Brenda and her twin brother must have had many intimate chats while they were growing up; surely there were some wild but accurate guesses in there. And it is inconceivable that the Reimer parents would never have alluded to Brenda's "accident." They probably discussed openly it all the time when the twins were two or three, the same way grown-ups often undress in front of their toddlers, regarding them as no more impressionable or sentient than the kitty-cat.
   
   The death of both twins a few years ago (one by overdose, the other by suicide) suggests that the family dynamics were far more messed up than we knew. I got the idea (from the book) that the twins were seriously lacking in ambition, social skills, and other incentives to get on in life. This is disturbing for me to contemplate, since it makes me wonder if the John/Joan experiment might have had a different outcome in a happier, less dysfunctional family. Would Brenda have adapted better, perhaps as a tomboy? Would she have decided to remain a girl if she'd been happier socially, with more friends and an intellectually stimulating envrionment? Perhaps not. But the sad dynamics of the Reimer family are an annoying variable, making me sometimes wonder whether the John/Joan case teaches us anything useful.



5. Horrifying story of a little baby boy, who suffered, firstly, during a circumcision accident and then every day of his life as he is forced to live as a girl.
   The description of his treatment and the treatment of his brother at the hands of the supervising doctor is beyond horrific. To show small children pornography and to make them simular sex with each other just curdled my mind. And the total lack of listening to the patient is truely unbelievable that it was permitted for so long.
   The book is well written and a realy page turner. Your heart goes out to the boy and his family and you can't help but looking at the photos in the middle. Don't be afraid that the book may be too dry, it is written with the lay person in mind. Sympathetic to David and the choices his parents made in 1967.
   A must read and extremely thought provoking.

No comments about Miss O: My Life in Dance.