Wednesday Talk: October 14, 2026, 10am-12pm – hybrid
October 14 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Jacalyn Duffin, Hannah Chair of History of Medicine, Queen’s U
Title: “Canada on Easter Island: The Secret History of a Blockbuster Drug”
Abstract: In 1964 Canada led an international scientific expedition of 38 scientists to Easter Island, the most isolated community in the world. The team was concerned about the risks of greater contact with the planned airport due to open soon. They would document the entire biosphere – humans, animals, plants, microbes—and return some time after the airport to repeat the study and delineate impact. The first expedition took place and gathered mountains of data, but a report was never written; the second expedition never happened; and the entire project was forgotten. Duffin found its records, tracked down 17 of the still-living scientists, reconstructed the missing report, and travelled to the island herself to embark on the comparison study. In her research, she uncovered the expedition’s role in the discovery of one of the most important drugs of our time.
Bio: Jacalyn Duffin, CM, MD (Toronto), PhD (Sorbonne), FRCPC, FRSC, FCAH, is a hematologist and historian and professor emerita at Queen’s University where she occupied the Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine from 1988 to 2017. She is editor-in-chief of the Oxford Bibliographies History of Medicine module that was launched in spring 2025. A former president of both the American and Canadian scholarly societies for the history of medicine, she is the author of eleven books and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, holds several awards for teaching, research and service, including Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2012) and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2013), and induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame (2019). She was named to the Order of Canada in 2020. Her research focuses on disease, technology, religion, and health policy and she runs an activist website for information about the drug shortage. Her award-winning book Stanley’s Dream on Canada’s medical expedition to Easter Island was published in 2019, her COVID-19: A History appeared in October 2022, and her Laennec: l’invention du diagnostic moderne in 2026. Two more books will appear later in 2026.
The link to register is coming soon.
The deadline to register is the Monday before the event at noon. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
