For sale is a 1938 MEDICAL BOOKLET called 53 EMERGENCY AIDS WHILE WIATING FOR THE DOCTOR written by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and published by Prairie Creek Books LLC., Torrington, WY. Booklet is complete and in good condition. The cover photo features Dr. Dafoe smoking a pipe which is a strange choice for a publication seeking to promote good health. It’s fun to spot the outdated advice such as the instructions for artificial respiration which involves sitting on the distressed person’s butt and inexplicably squeezing their sides. A recommended treatment for “hysteria”, which may generally impacts young women or nervous children, is to throw a cup of cold water in their face. For croup, you should move the patient to a warm room and “rig up a home-made croup tent”. This is a great pamphlet for seeing how far medicine and medical treatment has come over the last 80 years.
Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe was an interesting character. He was Doctor Oz before there was a Doctor Oz. He was a Canadian obstetrician but he became sort of celebrity because he delivered and cared for the Dionne quintuplets, the first quintuplets known to survive early infancy. On 28 May 1934, he assisted in the multiple births of the Dionne family, that saw the survival of the mother and all the children. After this event captured the attention of the international press, he continued to help care for the children for years, and became something of a celebrity in the onslaught of media attention. After Dafoe became one of their guardians, he devoted little work to his medical practice. Instead, he became wealthy from his pay as guardian and from multiple commercial endorsements and speaking fees. Dafoe was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his work with the Dionne quintuplets. He died on 2 June 1943 at age 60.
In the booklet for sale, there’s a picture of Dr. Dafoe with the Dionne quintuplets. The caption under the photo includes this bizarre text; “Dr. Dafoe with his five famous little wards–the Dionnes. Their bubbling health and normal bodies are the result of constant scientific care.”
