Dr. Abbott makes an impression
Date: Oct. 4, 1999
Time: 1:59 pm
Medical pioneer Maude Abbott (1869-1940) is being honoured by Canada Post in a special millennium stamp. Abbott, author of The Atlas of Congenital Cardiac Diseases (1936) and a world authority on heart defects, helped found the Federation of Medical Women of Canada in 1924. The FMWC first lobbied for a stamp in her honour in 1989. "It's a fantastic tribute for her," psychologist Susan Kelen, an FMWC associate member, told eCMAJ Today. She spent many hours lobbying Canada Post to include Abbott in its special issue of millennium stamps. Kelen's mother, Dr. Marion Francis-Kelen, knew Abbott.
The Abbott stamp is 1 of 68 commemorating prominent Canadian humanitarians and medical professionals. The stamps have been included in a hardcover book, The Millennium Collection, and will be released as postage stamps beginning Jan. 17 (www.canadapost.ca). Other physicians in the special series include Dr. Armand Frappier, a Quebec-born physician and microbiologist who created an international laboratory devoted to the study of leprosy. Also honoured is Dr. Hans Selye, an endocrinologist from the University of Montreal who led the way in understanding the biological factors underlying stress.
The depiction of Abbott on her stamp is taken from a portrait that hangs alongside one of Dr. William Osler at McGill University in Montreal. Abbott, a world-famous pediatric cardiologist and pathologist, ranked with the likes of Osler because of her work at McGill. In addition to her seminal Atlas, which listed a classification of cardiac disease based on 1000 cases, Abbott published more than 100 scientific articles and edited the Bulletin of Pathology from 1908 to 1936.
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