News Release: Museum of Health Care encourages Canadians to become part of the COVID-19 historical record
If you ever wanted to be a part of history, this is your chance! The Museum of Health Care at Kingston is issuing a nation-wide call, urging all Canadians to share their personal COVID-19 stories in an effort to lay the foundation for a future COVID-19 Collection at the Museum.
Good Air and Bad Air: The Importance of Ventilation
Considered by many as the founder of modern nursing, British social reformer Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was one of the most well-known female voices on health care in the 19th century. In this blog entry, I outline what Florence Nightingale believed was the most important consideration of nursing – the ventilation and good air of a patient’s room – and will explore how this advice recurs and develops in the ensuing forty years in home advice manuals.
Domestic Nursing: An Introduction to Maintaining the Sick-Room
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Complete Cookery Book (1861) was perhaps the most well-known and referred-to home advice manual of its time. It was originally published in 24 separate parts from 1859 to 1861, and then compiled as a bound book in 1861, soon becoming a staple in most Victorian homes.
Health Care in the Victorian Home
I am very excited to be able to research and share with you a topic I personally find fascinating – health in the Canadian home during the Victorian era. I will be using home advice manuals, written primarily by women authors, to explore how the day-to-day health of families did not primarily fall underneath the purview of the doctor or the midwife, but was left in the care of the mother of the home or the ‘Angel in the House’.
Museum of Health Care Summer Experience: Part 2
Working at the Museum of Health Care became, and continues to be, my dream job. I can scarcely believe that someone actually pays me to read and write about topics I find interesting, as well as gain absolutely invaluable experience in artefact handling and exhibit development.
Funding Success for Museum Collection
We are excited to announce that Ontario’s Museums and Technology Fund has granted $15,000 to the Museum of Health Care for the development of a new feature on our website entitled “From the Collection”. To be developed over the next year, this page will include a series of short illustrated profiles for various objects, images, and documents drawn from the MHC collections.