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).

Jacalyn Duffin is a haematologist and historian who is Professor in the Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine at Queen`s University.

Jacalyn Duffin's profile page

'It is a most useful, indeed an indispensable reference work for its subject and for that period of Canadian history during which William Lyon Mackenzie King was a major figure.'

The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

'... Dawson believe in the North American two-party system in which the primary task of the statesman is to keep in healthy operation a nation-wide political party, uniting as many of the major interest-groups in the country as possible ... This was exactly how King conceived his function as a political leader. Dawson gives a masterly analysis of how he brought together again the warring factions of the Liberal party which had been so badly split by the Conscription crisis ... When we Canadians have digested these three volumes we shall be politically a much more mature people.'

Political Science Quarterly