Dr. Cluny Macpherson : reflections on the early career of a Newfoundland physician

Abstract

This thesis explores the changing nature of medicine and health care in Newfoundland and Labrador during the early twentieth century. It does so by examining the early career of Dr. Cluny Macpherson, a physician from St. John’s whose career spanned sixty years. The contexts in which Macpherson practiced reveal both change and continuity in the development of health care delivery systems as they evolved to meet the needs of the population: advances in medical science changed understandings of infectious disease and available treatments; trends in religious and philanthropic thought brought health care and social reform to northern regions; and the First World War brought reform to the organizational structure of military medicine, and pushed scientific and medical research in new and specialized directions.