[Not Available]. / Un médicament "monstrueux": débats publics et couverture médiatique de la tragédie de la thalidomide au Canada, 1961-1963.

This article focuses on the thalidomide tragedy that occurred in Canada in 1962. Through the study of various primary sources, including letters sent by citizens to the federal Minister of Health and newspaper coverage of the tragedy, we provide an analysis of the public debates provoked by babies born with phocomelia in order to better assess the conception Quebec and Canadian societies had of disabled persons at the beginning of the 1960s. Inspired by the French philosopher Marie-Claire Cagnolo's classification scheme of the "logics" that characterized the treatment of disabled persons through history, the study concludes that a "separatist logic of elimination" clearly arose, while a "paternalistic logic of reparation" also began to appear. A "societal logic of integration", however, did not emerge, as concern was limited to the fate of thalidomide babies, rather than that of all disabled children.

[Quebec's physicians, infant mortality and nationalist politics, 1910-1940]. / Entre la "Revanche" et la "Viellée" des berceaux: les médecins québécois francophones, la mortalité infantile et la question nationale, 1910-40.

This article analyzes the discourse of a Québécois medical elite, comprising primarily public health physicians and pediatricians, concerning infant mortality between 1910 and 1940. It emphasizes its similarities with nationalist discourse, and the fact that nationalist ideology provided doctors with arguments to justify the staggeringly high infant mortality rate experienced by their compatriots and encouraged them to glorify the high birthrate of French Canadians. According to the medico-nationalist discourse, the high birthrate (or "Revanche des berceaux") would even have been an obstacle to their struggle against infant mortality (or their "Veillée"). The legendary fecundity of French-Canadian women, a myth that is historically questionable, could thus explain, at least partially, the fact that public health measures adopted in Quebec during this period were less stringent than in Ontario, the "sister province" that Quebec's hygienists took nonetheless as their point of reference.