Medical men, masculine respectability, and the contest for power in mid-nineteenth century Quebec

The author examines the five official investigations into Quebec City's Marine and Emigrant Hospital between 1839 and 1853, largely instigated by doctors, some of whom worked at the hospital. She found that the resulting inquiries' documentation, open letters and memoirs provide a rich source of information about doctors' contests for power, representations of self and others, and everyday life in Quebec City's medical community at mid-nineteenth century. The author focuses on three medical doctors associated with the hospital of that era -- James Douglas (1800-1886), William Marsden (1807-1885), and Joseph Painchaud (178701871). She points out that these three doctors recorded characterizations of each other as ethnically and religiously suspect, inherently corrupt, and untrustworthy in their positions of authority.