Torontonensis 1922

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The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine is North America’s largest medical school and a major health consortium, boasting nine affiliated teaching hospitals and a network of research institutes. It is where insulin was pioneered, stem cells were first discovered, and famous physicians from Vincent Lam to Sheela Basrur began their careers. But despite all its major accomplishments, the faculty’s impressive history has never before been comprehensively documented. In Partnership for Excellence, senior medical historian and award-winning author Edward Shorter details the Faculty of Medicine’s history from its inception as a small provincial school to its present day status as an international powerhouse. Deeply researched through front-line interviews and primary sources, it ties the story of the faculty and its teaching hospitals to the general history of medicine over this period. Shorter emphasizes the enormous concentration of intellectual energy in the faculty that has allowed it to become the dominant force in Canadian medicine, home to a legion of medical pioneers and achievements.

In 1936, long before the discovery of the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, the Royal Ontario Museum made a sensational acquisition: the contents of a Viking grave that prospector Eddy Dodd said he had found on his mining claim east of Lake Nipigon. The relics remained on display for two decades, challenging understandings of when and where Europeans first reached the Americas. In 1956 the discovery was exposed as an unquestionable hoax, tarnishing the reputation of the museum director, Charles Trick Currelly, who had acquired the relics and insisted on their authenticity. Drawing on an array of archival sources, Douglas Hunter reconstructs the notorious hoax and its many players. Beardmore unfolds like a detective story as the author sifts through the voluminous evidence and follows the efforts of two unlikely debunkers, high-school teacher Teddy Elliott and government geologist T.L. Tanton, who find themselves up against Currelly and his scholarly allies. Along the way, the controversy draws in a who’s who of international figures in archaeology, Scandinavian studies, and the museum world, including anthropologist Edmund Carpenter, whose mid-1950s crusade against the find’s authenticity finally convinced scholars and curators that the grave was a fraud. Shedding light on museum practices and the state of the historical and archaeological professions in the mid-twentieth century, Beardmore offers an unparalleled view inside a major museum scandal to show how power can be exercised across professional networks and hamper efforts to arrive at the truth.

Born in 1905, George Bernard Flahiff was the son of an innkeeper in a small Ontario town. A versatile athlete and exceptional student, he studied at the University of Toronto, where his history professor, Lester Pearson, suggested a career in diplomacy. Instead, Flahiff entered the Basilian order, studied in Paris, taught at the Pontifical Institute, and became superior general of the Basilians. Named archbishop of Winnipeg, he fell in love with the west. His appointment as archbishop coincided with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Inspired by the Vatican sessions he attended, he strove for the spiritual renewal of the people of his diocese, becoming a clear and constant voice of the Church in Canada and beyond. Open to new things but respectful of the old, he spoke up for the rights of women and the importance of the laity in the Church. His ecumenical leadership in Manitoba was outstanding. Ultimately a cardinal and elector of two popes, George Flahiff stands out among bishops because he defied stereotypes, preferring buses to limousines, "George" to "Eminence," and friendship to privilege. Never seeking greatness in any way but ever obedient to his calling, he rose to the highest ranks in the Church, accepting each new position with faith and humility. P. Wallace Platt, CSB, is a Basilian missionary in Columbia.