Adding to the Portfolio and the Narrative: Further Images of Eighteenth-Century Labrador Inuit in England

Advance Online Article published March 6, 2023This article contributes to academic debates about the relationship between Indigenous rights and the expansion of capitalism and colonialism in Canada. Using case studies of duty to consult litigation related to resource extraction on and near Inuit territory, I argue that Inuit experiences with the duty to consult have been mixed. While Inuit have won some important victories in the courts, in other cases the duty to consult has provided a notably weak legal mechanism for Inuit to either stop unwanted extraction or compel the government to impose effective mitigation measures to safeguard Inuit harvesting rights. The duty to consult appears to mostly enable, rather than impede, the expansion of colonial and capitalist social relations in the Inuit homeland.

Inuit have always worked within seasonal patterns, using ecological observations to make predictions about weather, ocean and ice conditions, species presence, and environmental change. Monitoring, intergenerational knowledge sharing, and strong relationships have supported Inuit as they have responded to environmental conditions through generations. This has informed a unique understanding of seasonal change that is reflective of Inuit knowledge and relationships to land, water, and ice. Calendars across Inuit Nunangat are unique to the social–ecological regions in which they were developed. In this collaboration between Inuit and non-Inuit researchers, artists, and knowledge holders, we developed a seasonal calendar for Nunatsiavut that is representative not only of activities and species harvested throughout the year, but that also depicts a Labrador Inuit relationship to seasonality. This research is part of the Imappivut Knowledge Study, a participatory research process designed by the Nunatsiavut Government to inform spatial planning in the marine environment of northern Labrador. The resulting calendar expresses an Inuit experience of the seasons as they are inexorably linked to life and wellbeing in Nunatsiavut. The calendar can be used to reframe Federal and Provincial environmental management policies, such as harvest regulations for Atlantic salmon, to align with Nunatsiavut-based indicators of seasonal change.

A skeletal spectacle

Journal Article John hunter. By JESSIE DOBSON, B.A., M.Sc., A.C.I.S., Curator, Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England. 8 ½ × 5 ½ in. Pp. 361 + xx, with 16 illustrations. 1969. Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone Ltd. 50s Get access John hunter. By JessieDobson, B.A., M.Sc., A.C.I.S., Curator, Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England. 8 ½ × 5 ½ in. Pp. 361 + xx, with 16 illustrations. 1969. Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone Ltd. 50s British Journal of Surgery, Volume 57, Issue 5, May 1970, Page 401, https://doi.org/10.1002/bjs.1800570522 Published: 07 December 2005

This article examines the anthropological context of Rudolf Virchow’s study of two Labrador Inuit families displayed at an 1880 Völkerschau (‘ethnographic exhibit’) in Berlin, and how the latter reflected the ongoing discourse of the Inuit as a “race.” It also discusses how Virchow’s anthropometrical methodology and findings regarding the two families are linked to Franz Boas’ Arctic fieldwork and subsequent anthropological research. Virchow, one of the founders of German ethnology and anthropology, had contributed to a sparse “scientific” discourse surrounding the “Esquimaux” with several studies on Arctic peoples, before meeting the young Boas. In particular, this Völkerschau provided him with the unprecedented opportunity of studying the Labrador Inuit directly. An analysis of his study, and other work by Virchow, sheds light on the contemporary issues of anthropological interpretation, which he faced, and how his approach lent itself to the choice of Baffin Island by Boas as a site of fieldwork, as well as the shift towards cultural relativism.

A renewal of interest in the French impressionists began in 1974 with the 100th anniversary of the first exhibition of the artists who broke with the official Salon in Paris and held their own exhibitions from 1874 through 1886. Since 1974, there has been a swell of interest in reinvestigating lesser-known European and American impressionist artists, especially women artists whose work often was relegated to second-class professional status. Among them was Helen Maria Turner (1858-1958), an artist whose work merits further examination. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Turner's art was held in great esteem by critics, private and public collectors, and her peers. Despite her contributions to the movement of impressionism in America, her works are often overlooked today. Following her death in 1958, the first examination of her work did not occur until 1983, when art historian Louis Hoyer Rabbage curated a retrospective exhibition for the Cragsmoor Free Library in Ulster County, New York. In the exhibition catalogue, Rabbage declared that the purpose of the exhibition was to make a statement on behalf of Turner's "rightful place in American art history" and that a definitive biography and catalogue raisonné were still needed. William Gerdts's 1995 landmark volume, Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Paintings, included her work, but no one has undertaken major new research. The objective of this project is to give further consideration to Turner's work by exploring her seventy-year career, especially her early years of art training in New Orleans, heretofore overlooked. The project investigates the influences on her style and subject matter, how her work reflects the time in which it was produced, and how her professional career served as a role model for other artists. An attachment documenting her paintings in museum collections includes the provenance and exhibition history for each work. A detailed history of her participation in museum and gallery exhibitions is also attached. The main sources used to compile this information were Turner's papers at the New-York Historical Society and materials from the museums and institutions that hold her work.

The glands of Owen

The art of war

On 1 September 2007, I wrote to the Journal regarding one's puzzlement that in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London, no mention was made of the surgeon who performed the first heart transplant, or of where the operation took place.

Increasing longevity for Inuit living in Nunavik, northern Quebec, has resulted in heightened rates of cancers and chronic diseases necessitating complex treatments. Consequently, end-of-life (EOL) care, once the domain of Inuit families and communities, has come to include professionalized healthcare providers with varying degrees of awareness of factors to consider in providing care to Inuit populations. To better understand the factors shaping EOL care in Nunavik to support the development of a sustainable model of care. Using focused ethnography, we conducted participant observations and informal and semistructured interviews with 103 participants (community members, healthcare practitioners, and administrators) across Nunavik and in Montreal, the affiliated tertiary care center. Data domains included the following: care trajectories; patient and family experiences receiving and providing EOL care; local and urban resources and challenges; and ways forward. Sociocultural, historical, and geographic factors shape EOL care in Nunavik, presenting a complex set of challenges for Inuit patients, families, and healthcare providers. A sustainable model of EOL care requires building on shared initiatives, capitalizing on the existing strengths in communities, and attending to the multiple bereavement needs in the region. Building a sustainable model of EOL care requires respectful collaboration among governing structures, healthcare institutions, and community members. It must centrally value local knowledge and initiatives. To ensure Inuit families and patients are supported throughout the dying process, future initiatives must centrally include local stakeholders in both the design and evaluation of any changes to the current healthcare system.

The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London (review)

When Britain went to war in 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was deployed without a single dentist. Initially considered combatants, the only dental professionals who could serve at the Front were medically qualified dental surgeons in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In treating the traumatic facial and jaw injuries caused by trench warfare, the dental surgeons of this era earned their place on specialist surgical teams and established the principles of oral and maxillofacial surgery. This article will examine the contribution of specialist dental surgeons to the management of facial and jaw wounds in the First World War along the chain of evacuation from the battlefield to the home front, using illustrative examples from the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

'A proper and commodious building': The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England

The Hunterian Museum at The Royal College of Surgeons of England contains approximately 3,500 specimens of human and comparative anatomy and pathology collected by the surgeon, John Hunter (1728–1793). A significant part of the collection comprises pathological specimens. These include specimens removed during surgery or as incidental findings from anonymous bodies being dissected during anatomical teaching. However, the majority comes from the bodies of patients on which Hunter performed post-mortem examinations. These include patients at St George's Hospital, where Hunter worked as a surgeon from 1768 until his death. A surprising number also come from the bodies of private patients. These were presumably removed with consent, at autopsies that would have taken place in the patient's own home and often with the patient's family or friends present.

For those interested in the anomalies of the human body Dr Bondeson's latest work offers many examples—a treasure trove of the morbid and unusual and, for the medically inclined, some intriguing case histories. Bondeson has written at least four other books on the bizarre, and the Pig-faced Lady is a tour de force—highly researched, well illustrated where possible and bringing to life the people affected. Was the early-nineteenth-century pig-faced lady in the title real or just a hoax? The author's meticulous research cannot find the answer. Her predecessor Tannakin Skinker from Holland, who made her first appearance in London in 1639 where she was hoping to find a husband, was much featured in ballads and songs but she too may have been more legend than fact. Similar stories are explored concerning hairy maidens, one of whom, Julia Pastrana, was reported in a Lancet of 1857. Conjoined twins are another area explored. Sometimes these were put on show to provide a living for themselves and their families; thus we have newspaper reports, advertisements and articles in medical journals to substantiate the claims for one body supporting two persons. Probably it is the story of Daniel Lambert from Leicestershire that will appeal most to the medical world—especially in the light of today's obsession with obesity. An entire chapter is devoted to the 'English fat man', illuminated by the author's own experiences as a senior registrar dealing with primary obesity. Bondeson also tells with enthusiasm the stories of two eighteenth-century giants, the Swede Daniel Cajanus and the Irishman Charles Byrne (whose skeleton is in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England). With clever marketing these men made substantial amounts of money by exploiting their extreme condition as showmen, though both contrived to lead relatively normal lives. Cajanus was a prudent intelligent man; Byrne's intellect was not helped by his habit of drinking at least one large bottle of gin or whisky every day. These chapters on the fat and tall are the most interesting and readable in the book; in his accounts of the King of Poland's Court Dwarf and the Sicilian Fairy (whose skeleton and clothes are likewise at the Royal College of Surgeons of England), Bondeson tells us more about the person behind the abnormality, and does so with great skill. The Dwarf does not emerge as an endearing character. The other medical marvels will await the reader to be amazed, repulsed or mildly amused; this is a book to dip into and some of the evidence to be taken lightly. If you are fascinated by congenital abnormalities you will be excited. If you are revolted by the whole scene, spare yourself a trip to the bookshop.