Rural Quebec Research Articles

Saturnism at Hudson's Bay: the York Factory complaint of 1833-1836.

The major problem facing historians of clinical medicine is the difficulty of retrospective diagnosis. What disease (or diseases) was the leprosy of the Bible? What was the English “sweating sickness”? What diagnosis should be given for the mysterious mal de la Baie St. Paul that ravaged rural Quebec in the 1780's? The problem arises for many reasons. Some diseases have changed over the years: long before the advent of antibiotics, scarlet fever began to be less fatal and less severe amongst survivors. Syphilis, although still a serious disorder, certainly is a different disease now than it was when it devastated Western Europe in the 1490's, killing thousands. But most diseases probably have changed infrequently within historical times.

Quelques Considerations Sur Le Taux Eleve De Schizophrenie Dans Un Type De Communaute Canadienne — Francaise

A mental health survey of fourteen rural Quebec and Ontario communities of various cultural backgrounds, revealed that the active prevalence of schizophrenia in the three traditional French-Canadian communities chosen was much higher than in any of the remainder, Careful re-examination of the data indicated that the difference was genuine, not deriving from diagnostic bias or cultural outlook of the investigators, from the age structure or socio-economical level of the communities, or from differences in use of psychiatric services. The excess of cases, however, proved to lie almost wholly in the female half of the population, and further analysis showed that the disorder struck especially at young unmarried women and at middle-aged married ones, the younger married group being relatively free. Sociological investigations suggest that one of the factors contributing to the observed excess of schizophrenia is a discrepancy between the actual and the nominal roles occupied by women in the traditional communities. Other factors may be the greater tolerance of dependency which the latter show, the greater clarity with which they enforce their concept of the sick role, and their greater intolerance of other forms of deviancy.

Infections due to Trichophyton tonsurans and Trichophyton sulfureum in rural eastern Quebec.

Seventy cases of dermatomycosis due toTrichophyton tonsurans (21 cases) andT. sulfureum (49 cases) were found in rural Quebec east of Rimouski during field investigations from 1956–1961. There are no immigrants in this area and endothrix ringworm has been present for at least three consecutive generations.

A New Epoch in Rural Quebec

The rural French-Canadian community of St. Denis, studied intensively in 1936-37, was revisited during 1949. Social change was analyzed with a view to establishing the trnds in rural Quebec and in order to test hypotheses based on the previous study. It was found that the one largely self-sufficient community had moved toward greater interdependence with the outside world, most markedly in production and communication technology. Demographic changes were also found. Unanticopated changs were caused by Dominion and provincial programs which brought considerable cash income into the community without requiring any fundamental change in the social structure. This new income provided means of fulfilling needs which previously had to go unfilled.

The Life Cycle of French-Canadian Urban Families

The literature of scientific studies, either demographic, economic, or sociological, on Canadian families, is rather thin. Except for some valuable local monographs and theses interred in university libraries, one must rely almost exclusively on excellent but very few general studies of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Among such are the 1931 Census monograph on the Canadian family, the 1937-8 national survey on the Canadian family income and expenditure pattern and, more recently, the remarkable series of studies by Dr. Enid Charles on the trends and differences in Canadian family size as revealed by the last Census of 1941.The French-speaking part of Canada geographically concentrated in the Province of Quebec represents, within the Canadian context, a culturally and politically conscious social structure. At present, this society, owing to rapid industrialization and concomitant adjustments, includes areas and communities of all the possible transitional shades from the solid, old-settled, rural type, to the more complex, dynamic, and urbanized variety. Studies of French-Canadian families in any of these differentiated areas are also scarce. The traditional type of French-Canadian rural family has been ably studied by the Canadian sociologist follower of the Le Play School of Social Science, Léon Gérin, especially in his monograph entitled the Habitant de Saint-Justin. More recently, Horace Miner scientifically analysed for the first time, the relationships between land and the family in rural Quebec. Both of these studies stress the following basic features of the traditional rural French-Canadian family: a high degree of familism and of internal solidarity, a fundamental functional relationship with the tenure system of large family-ownership of the farm as well as with a peculiar pattern of land inheritance which consists in the passing of the whole farm, undivided, to only one inheriting son in each family.