Domestic Medicine in Scotland - lecture - Nov 25, 2010 - Vancouver BC

Here's an event of interest to genealogists, historians and those interested in Scotland. Sponsored by Simon Fraser University's Scottish Studies.

St. Andrews and Caledonian Society Lecture: “William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine: An International Scottish Best-Seller”.

7:00-8:30, Thursday, November 25, 2010: Room 1420, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W. Hastings St. Vancouver, BC.

For nearly a century after its initial publication in Edinburgh in 1769, Domestic Medicine, by the Scottish physician William Buchan, was by far the most popular home health guide in Britain and North America. Families passed it down from generation to generation, and some of them are reputed to have organized their lives around its teachings. Yet precisely because Domestic Medicine empowered ordinary people to make their own decisions about medical matters, it placed Buchan into a confrontational relationship with some members of the medical profession. At the same time, the book’s extraordinary commercial success, coupled with Buchan’s desperate circumstances, created tensions between the author and his publishers. In this illustrated lecture, Dr. Richard B. Sher uses the methodology of book history to achieve new insight into these issues.

Simon Fraser University's Scottish Studies Department: http://scottish.sfu.ca

Electric Scotland's biography of Doctor William Buchan: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/buchan_william.htm