Healthways: Newfoundland Elders-Their Lifestyles and Values

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views
of Canada, 1880–1914.

Healthways sets out to chronicle the various ways in which
Newfoundlanders, in the first quarter of this century when professional
healthcare (especially in the outports) was almost nonexistent, attended
to their medical needs. The book consists of first-person accounts of
the work of local midwives, of the kinds of illnesses most common in
fishing communities, and of local remedies and “recipes for healthy
living.” A couple of typical entries: “They used to go to work and
steep out spruce boughs, get spruce boughs, clean boughs, and wash them
and steep them and then drain off the water, the liquor, and put it in
bottles and take a drink. It would give you a good appetite”;
“That’s something that my mother never did, never talked about in
front of us, maturing and changes in our body, stuff like that.”

The bibliographic information suggests that Healthways is of value to
the medical anthropologist or to those interested in the history of
medical care in Newfoundland. However, the vagueness of the accounts
(typified in the comments “Oh, she was midwife for, I don’t know how
long. I don’t know if she ever got paid”) diminishes the book’s
usefulness as either a medical or anthropological resource. For the
general reader, the repetitiousness of the accounts quickly becomes
tiresome.