For the first time since its opening in December 1939, the Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital, located in Norris Point on the west coast of Newfoundland, closed its doors in 2001. Some readers of this book will be curious about life in small rural hospitals, or perhaps about changes in the nature and organization of hospital care in rural communities; yet others will wonder what lessons can be learned from small community hospitals. Cottage hospitals in Newfoundland, which have become an indelible part of its history since the 1930s, offer a rich story. The one in Norris Point has a particularly important history which includes the involvement and contributions of such Newfoundland notables as Nurse Myra Bennett and Dr. Noel Murphy.

John K. Crellin holds British qualifications in medicine, in pharmacy, and in the history of science. His career spans three countries, at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in the U.K., at Southern Illinois and Duke Universities in the USA, and at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, where he was John Clinch Professor of Medical History until his official retirement in 2002. He lives in St. Philip’s with his wife, Janet, and continues to teach complementary and alternative medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University. He has written several books, some of which have a Newfoundland focus. Mi’sel Joe: An Aboriginal Chief’s Journey, a book he co-edited with Raoul R. Anderson, was a Canadian Aboriginal Books for Schools 2009–2010 Selection; a finalist for the 2010 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing; and a First Nation Communities Read 2011–2012 “Also Recommended” Title.

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