McLay Miller was born May 3rd, 1908, in Aylmer, Ontario, to father Blake Miller and mother Grace McLay. Miller spent his early and teenage years predominantly in Aylmer, but also lived in Brampton for a short time where he attended Brampton Collegiate for 2 years, before completing his final years of schooling back in Aylmer. Miller was heavily influenced to become a doctor by his family, as both his uncle (Dr. Homer Miller) and grandfather were doctors who also had lived and worked in Aylmer. After graduating high school in Aylmer, Miller applied and was accepted into the combined BA/MD program at Western University located in London, Ontario, in 1926. In 1933 Miller graduated with his combined BA/MD degree, and interned at a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania for a year, before moving back to Aylmer. In Aylmer, Miller joined his uncle Homer at his practice, where they worked together for 15 years, before Homer Miller retired in 1948. Miller would practice medicine in Aylmer until his own retirement in 1985 at the age of 77. Miller’s post retirement days were spent with his wife Iola and enjoying hobbies such as bookbinding and photography.
McLay Miller passed away in 1996.
Leonard Norris was born August 30, 1904, to father Arthur George Norris and mother Elizabeth Wooten, in London, England. Norris emigrated to Canada with his mother from England in April of 1920, where he worked on various farms in the prairies before joining the Communist Party of Canada in 1936. From July 12, 1937, Norris fought in the Spanish Civil War as part of the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion of the International Brigades. During the Spanish Civil War, Norris served at Fuentas De Ebro, Segura de los Banos, The Retreats, the Ebro Offensive, and Gandesa. Norris then contracted tuberculosis and returned home in January of 1939. He later enlisted in the army for the Second World War but was discharged after 3 months due to the progression of tuberculosis.
After the Second World War, Norris participated in various unionization efforts such as the Relief Project Workers' Union and the Canadian Labor Defence League. He was the editor for the Newsletter of the Veterans of the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion and visited Spain with the Veterans Delegation in September of 1979.
Dr. Alexander Anderson Numbers was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1897, to father Andrew Numbers and mother Margaret Thomson Numbers. He emigrated to Canada with his family at the age of 15 and enlisted in the army in 1916 during the Frist World War, serving in France as a stenographer for three and a half years. Coming back from the war in 1919, he spent five years attending night school at Hamilton Collegiate Institute while at the same time working as a stenographer and a bookkeeper during the day. Dr. Numbers studied medicine in the medical school at the University of Toronto from 1924 to 1930 and interned at the Hamilton General Hospital after graduation until September 1931, when he joined a practice in Ancaster and started his own business on King East a year later. During his years of medical practice, Dr. Numbers held posts as chief of medical staff at both the Hamilton Civic Hospitals and St. Peter’s Centre and was honoured by the Hamilton Academy of Medicine as one of the first two recipients of the first distinguished achievement award in recognition of his remarkable career and his leadership in developing the Academy’s archive and museum.
Dr. Numbers died in 1989.
"Pedagogue" was a newsletter published by the Program for Educational Development. The newsletter was intended primarily for participants in the educational programs in the Health Sciences Faculty at McMaster University, though it was also received by colleagues throughout the globe.
The title of the newsletter came from the common meaning of "pedagogue" as a teacher and pedagogy referring to the study of the learning-teaching process. Both terms are derived from the root term "ped" meaning foot, and a pedagogue symbolically made footprints for learners to follow. The aim of the newsletter was to document the educational adventures of the faculty and to collectively grow in educational experiences.
The original newsletter logo was a yellow footprint with "Pedagogue" in burgundy title overtop. In 1989, the logo and layout was updated and the footprint removed. The updated logo featured the title in bold justified burgundy letters overtop of thin burgundy lines.
Marvin Penn was born in Winnipeg on September 14, 1913, to Annie and Joseph Penn. Moving to Canada with his family in 1928, he graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in Animal Husbandry and then moved to British Columbia to learn hunting fish and mining. After returning to Winnipeg a year later, Penn worked as a fur dresser and joined the Canadian Militia.
In 1936 Penn left Winnipeg for Spain where he joined the International Brigade, serving with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and later the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion. Penn participated in four major battles as a soldier and as a first aid man before stationing with the brigade headquarters at the Karl Marx barracks in Barcelona, setting up and supervising a hospital for International Brigadiers.
Penn returned to Canada in 1939 and lived in Toronto from 1943 to 1953, working mostly in the restaurant industry before returning to Winnipeg where he worked in airplane manufacturing during World War Two.Penn worked in the insurance industry and served on the boards of Bnai Brith and Herzlia Academy. He was also a broker of his own business, Penn Agencies and was a member of the Winnipeg Real Estate Board for 35 years. Penn organized a local group for veterans of the Spanish Civil War and was heavily involved with other veteran groups around the world. In 1996, he returned to Spain with other veterans of the Spanish Civil War where he was made an honourary citizen.
Penn passed away in Winnipeg in 2001.
Eugenia Pernal was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, to a successful businessman. She finished the fourth year of high school in 1939, when the war broke out. She went to the medical school in the ghetto for about three or four months before she went to the nursing school on Leszno. She finished her nursing courses within a year and received a diploma in nursing. In the meantime, she worked in Berson and Baumann Children’s Hospital on Sliska. During the massive deportations starting in July 1942, she managed to get out of the ghetto using fake Aryan papers and went to Germany as a Polish girl, where she worked for the French prisoners-of-war in a factory. She married Zygmunt Pernal after the war and settled down in Canada. She died on November 1, 2009 at Toronto Western Hospital.
The Pulse and Palette: An Art Contest is an annual contest created by the Health Sciences Library in Fall of 2023 to engage the McMaster community, and to promote the library’s Graphic Medicine initiatives. The contest invites the McMaster community to showcase their talents and engage others through expressive storytelling. Each participant of the contest submits their art digitally with a corresponding description or story relating to the art piece, which is then featured in an online exhibit where the art is voted on to win a 1st or 2nd prize. The winning art pieces are then promoted via the Health Sciences Library's newsletter "HSL Happenings" and on social media platforms.
Participants are offered the option to deposit their art in the Health Sciences Archives as part of the Pulse and Palette Art Contest collection, where the art and corresponding stories/descriptions can be preserved and made accessible for educational and research purposes.
Johanna Rabinowitz (née van der Woerd) was born in the Netherlands and, in her late twenties, came to Canada in 1954 with her sister. Despite being a qualified and registered nurse, she began her Canadian nursing career in Hamilton, Ontario as a nursing assistant at Nora-Frances Henderson Hospital (now Juravinski Hospital). She soon left this position to become a nurse at Mountain Sanatorium. She then moved to Moose Factory, Ontario, near James Bay, to work at Moose Factory General Hospital. She returned to Mountain Sanatorium one and a half years later.
In the summer of 1958, Johanna was one of two nurses who traveled to the eastern Arctic aboard the CGS C.D. Howe as members of the annual Eastern Arctic Patrol. From 1946 to 1968, the Canadian government tasked the Eastern Arctic Patrol with medically examining the Inuit inhabitants of this region, evacuating those infected with tuberculosis to southern Canada for treatment at hospitals and sanatoriums (principally Mountain Sanatorium from 1955 to 1961), and returning home those treated in southern Canada who had recovered.
Johanna later married Dr. Paul Rabinowitz, a physician at Mountain Sanatorium, and was employed with the Victorian Order of Nurses. She died on April 16, 2009 in Grimsby, Ontario at the age of 81.