COVID-19 in Perspective: A Witness Seminar.

In June 2023, we brought together leaders who responded to the emergency phase COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario as part of a "Witness Seminar." This approach to studying history was developed by the Institute of Contemporary British History. It has been extensively used in the history of science and medicine by the Wellcome Trust History of Twentieth Century Medicine.

From Improving Egos to Perfecting Smiles: Orthodontics and Psychology, 1945-2000.

From World War II to the end of 20 century, the types of patients undergoing orthodontic treatment and their reasons for doing so changed significantly. In the 1950s and 1960s, Canadian parents were told that orthodontics would "cure" inferiority complexes and protect children with crooked teeth, especially girls, from a life of delinquency and missed opportunities. By the last two decades of the 20 century, the consumer health movement and rising incomes empowered patients to decide which treatments were right for them, and an increasing number of adult patients sought orthodontic treatment to improve their appearance.

Debating Water Fluoridation Before Dr. Strangelove.

In the 1930s, scientists learned that small amounts of fluoride naturally occurring in water could protect teeth from decay, and the idea of artificially adding fluoride to public water supplies to achieve the same effect arose. In the 1940s and early 1950s, a number of studies were completed to determine whether fluoride could have harmful effects. The research suggested that the possibility of harm was small.

"Our sickness record is a national disgrace": Adelle Davis, nutritional determinism, and the anxious 1970s.

America's most widely read nutritionist of the postwar decades, Adelle Davis, helped to shape Americans' eating habits, their child-feeding practices, their views about the quality of their food supply, and their beliefs about the impact of nutrition on their emotional and physical health. This paper closely examines Davis's writings and argues that even though she is often associated with countercultural food reformers like Alice Waters and Frances Moore Lappé, she had as much in common with the writings of interwar nutritionists and home economists. While she was alarmed about the impact of pesticides and food additives on the quality of the food supply, and concerned about the declining fertility of American soil, she commanded American women to feed their families better and promised that improved nutrition would produce stronger, healthier, more beautiful children who would ensure America's future strength.

Cities without cavities: democracy, risk, and public health.

This essay examines the history of fluoride debates in four Canadian cities. It argues that fluoride's opponents were primarily motivated by what they saw as the health and environmental risks of adding fluoride to the water supply. They also believed that fluoridating the public water supply was a fundamental violation of civil liberties.

The stages of the international drug control system.

This paper argues that the history of the international drug control system of the League of Nations/United Nations can be divided into three cumulative stages. The first stage, the supply stage, dates back to early part of the 20th century, and aimed to reduce the supply of drugs through careful monitoring and trade regulations. This has remained the dominant control strategy.