The care of strangers: the rise of America's hospital system

than these numbers would indicate. In contrast to Great Britain and the United States, scientific criticism of eugenic claims was rare in Canada, and it was only the rise of Nazism and the horrific revelations of the Second World War that effectively brought eugenics into disrepute, as it did in most other countries. Unfortunately McLaren touches upon far more intriguing issues than he develops. Though he mentions the importance of Catholic opposition to eugenics and birth control, and alludes to the unique problem of the French Canadians with their larger families, he does not really integrate the subject into his narrative. Along the same lines, he lapses into occasional feminist digressions about the evils of male chauvinism (especially in the medical profession) and its deleterious consequences for women, but does not explain the widespread, enthusiastic support of women's organizations for eugenic legislation, nor does he seem to find it odd that the two most important advocates of eugenics in Canada, the social reformer Helen MacMurchy and the geneticist Madge Thurlow Macklin were both women. If McLaren has perhaps showed too much restraint in surveying his subject he has in this introductory work nevertheless raised a number of provocative questions that would be well worth exploring in more depth.