Product Description
6 leaves, 178 pp, 1 leaf.
Original cloth.
Very Good.
First Edition.
SIGNED BY HELEN MacMURCHY TO LOUISA ALDRICH-BLAKE: "To/ Miss L.
Aldrich-Blake, M.
D.
/ Dean of the London (Royal Free Hp.
) School of Medicine for Women/ With Great Regard/ from/ Helen MacMurchy/ April 20th/ 1920".
ALSO SIGNED BY HELEN MacMURCHY on the title page (see photos).
A fine association between two important women physicians in 1920, MacMurchy in Canada and Aldrich-Blake in England.
After receiving her M.
D.
degree from the University of Toronto in 1901, MacMurchy went to Johns Hopkins for a year of post-graduate study in medicine, the first woman to do so.
Her contribution to the volume "Sir William Osler Memorial Number: Appreciations and Reminiscences" is "Dr.
Osler's Out-Door Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1902".
This was a re-creation of her experience with William Osler at Johns Hopkins.
In his biography of William Osler, Michael Bliss wrote: "If the scientific spirit at Johns Hopkins had many Germanic connections, the accents of the medical scientists were more apt to be Canadian.
Osler had brought down Henri Lafleur has his first resident.
In the 1890s Tom Cullen, Lewellys Barker, Tom McCrae, Jack McCrae, W.
G.
MacCallum, John MacCallum, Tom Futcher, HELEN MACMURCHY, and a large handful of other Canadians, including Bill Francis and another Osler nephew, Norman Gwyn, came to Hopkins as residents, interns, or students.
.
.
" (Michael Bliss, William Osler, p.
251).
The relationship between Helen MacMurchy and William Osler continued after 1902.
In December 1906, William Osler inscribed a copy of his book "The Growth of Truth as Illustrated in the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood" to her: "Dr.
Helen MacMurchy/ with the authors/ Sincere regards/ December 19th 1906".
On October 30, 1918, Osler wrote to MacMurchy, thanking and congratulating her about a report.
This letter, written in the year before Osler's death, leads me to the connection between the book offered here and William Osler.
In her Preface, Helen MacMurchy writes about the Introduction that Osler wrote for her book.
It was lost in transit and then Osler died: "PREFACE Sir William Osler, with characteristic kindness and generosity, wrote an Introduction to The Almosts and forwarded the manuscript from Oxford in the spring of 1919.
To the great loss of the reader, the manuscript never arrived.
All efforts to find it have been unavailing, and now the master has laid aside his pen.
Nevertheless, he, being dead, yet speaketh and his spirit still abides with his pupils.
To all my fellow-servants who are helping the mentally defective, and by helping them trying to serve humanity, this little book is offered in the hope that in their hands it may be used to advance the work of awakening public interest and educating public opinion.
Helen MacMurchy Toronto, Canada January 19, 1920" (see photo).
MacMurchy's book is mostly about fictional characters whom she sees as feebleminded or "almost" so.
It was.
.
.
![[Signed] [First Edition] The Almosts. A Study of the Feeble-Minded. SIGNED BY HELEN MacMURCHY TO LOUISA ALDRICH-BLAKE MacMURCHY, Helen](https://r.kelkoo.com/resize.php?country=ca&merchantId=100567270&categoryId=5101&trackingId=96985762&width=auto&height=auto&image=https%3A%2F%2Fpictures.abebooks.com%2Finventory%2F31180008950.jpg&sign=bb8TyCzpUzj.7ymBWhoT94qzMugzukg_BlhKexv3o_Y-)
