Andrew Fernando Holmes: Protestantism, Medicine, and Science in Nineteenth-Century Montreal

"As the best history books do, this one carries bracing reminders on every page of just how much the world has changed."

Ian McGillis, McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Alumni & Friends

"Vaudry’s mastery of the historiography of medicine, science, and religion of the late-18th and mid-19th centuries results in a lucid, all-embracing, and satisfying assessment of Holmes’s life and varied lasting contributions."

J. T. H. Connor, Memorial University, American Review of Canadian Studies

“This book offers a useful addition to our understanding of the early years of Canadian medicine and medical schools, one which avoids the too-often triumphalist approaches that lionize great men and treat the success of McGill (and other subsequent institutions) as somehow inevitable.” David Wright, McGill University, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"The strength of this work lies in the historical detail amassed by Richard W. Vaudry, and the vignettes of the early Montreal General Hospital and McGill's Faculty of Medicine."

Abraham Fuks, Department of Medicine, McGill University

"Richard W. Vaudry convincingly argues that, in both the personal and professional spheres, Holmes was deeply influenced by his religious faith. That influence is most clearly demonstrated in Vaudry's discussion of Holmes's own religion, as well as Holmes's engagement in science in the years before Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species transformed natural science into a battleground between those who shared Holmes's belief that God was in nature and agnostics like Thomas Huxley. Vaudry also provides a detailed discussion of the politics of medicine at the university, as well as at the colonial and imperial levels."

Todd Webb, Department of History, Laurentian University