Delivery of medicine to the northwest region of British Columbia, 1880-1960

Abstract

The Delivery of Medicine to the North West Region of British Columbia examines the relationship between medical culture and imperialism, religion and social progress from the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company to the mid twentieth century. The evolutionary stages examined in this study move through imperialism to colonialism and the arrival of the medical missionaries, to the contract medicine of resourced based industries, to the ascendancy of nurses and the outpost hospitals and finally the emergence of modern state supported medicine. It contends that medicine should not be examined alone but within the context of its cultural and social influences.