Jacalyn Duffin

Updated on Nov 19, 2024

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Nationality Canadian Education University of Toronto		Relatives Ross Duffin Residence Kingston, Canada

Full Name Jacalyn Mary Duffin Born June 9, 1950 (age 66) ( 1950-06-09 ) Occupation Professor in the History of Medicine, Hematologist Known for Medical evidence of miracle which helped canonize Marie-Marguerite d'Youville Notable work Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints and Healing in the Modern World, Oxford University Press, 2009History of Medicine: a Scandalously Short Introduction, University of Toronto Press, 1999; Macmillan, 2000 Title Hannah Chair, History of Medicine Books Medical Miracles: Doctors, Lovers and livers, History of Medicine: A Scanda, Medical Saints: Cosmas, Clio In The Clinic

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Jacalyn Mary "Jackie" Duffin (born 1950) is a Canadian medical historian and hematologist. She holds the Hannah Chair, History of Medicine at Queen's University. Formerly, she was President of the American Association for the History of Medicine and Canadian Society for the History of Medicine. From 1993-1995 she was Associate Dean Undergraduate Studies and Education at Queen's University. She is most well known for her testimony which led to the canonization of Marie-Marguerite d'Youville. As of 2010, she has published eight books (as author and editor) on the history of medicine and has written numerous articles on various subjects relating to the history of medicine, miracles, and hematology.

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Education

Duffin completed her MD from the University of Toronto . Soon after this, she moved to Paris where she elected to study hematology and René Laennec at the Sorbonne. She completed her PhD in the History of Medicine in 1985, she then returned to Canada.

Vatican testimony

Upon her return to Canada, Duffin settled in Ottawa where she took on a contract to review a set of slides, which she assumed were to be used in a malpractice suit. She was given no information about the patient, but identified the young woman as suffering from acute myeloblastic leukemia, “the most aggressive leukemia known.” As the slides were from some 5+ years earlier, she assumed the patient as deceased, as that form of leukemia kills usually within two years. Instead, she found that the patient had, after a relapse, gone into remission and was doing well some five years on. Duffin's testimony was to be used by the Vatican to determine whether Marie-Marguerite d'Youville (1701 – 1771) had performed a miracle and was worthy of canonization. According to Duffin, “They never asked me to say this was a miracle. They wanted to know if I had a scientific explanation for why this patient was still alive. I realized they weren’t asking me to endorse their beliefs. They didn’t care if I was a believer or not, they cared about the science.”

Works

Jacalyn Duffin Jacalyn Duffin Queen39s University

Langstaff: A Nineteenth-Century Medical Life, University of Toronto Press, 1993; London: Macmillan; reprinted 1999

To See with a Better Eye: A Life of R.T.H. Laennec, Princeton University Press, 1998.

History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction

1st edition, University of Toronto Press, 1999; Macmillan, 2000; Korean translation, 2006

2nd revised and expanded ed., U Toronto Press, 2010

Lovers and Livers: Disease Concepts in History. The Joanne Goodman Lectures, 2002, University of Toronto Press, 2005

Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints and Healing in the Modern World, Oxford University Press, 2009

Medical Saints: Cosmas and Damian in a Postmodern World, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Translator

Jacalyn Duffin BBC Religion amp Ethics Can a scientist believe in miracles

Grmek, Mirko D., History of AIDS: Emergence and Origin of a Modern Pandemic, Princeton University Press, 1990 (translation of Histoire du sida [1989], with Russell C. Maulitz)

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