Jacalyn Duffin is Professor in the Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine at Queen's University in Kingston, where she has taught in medicine, philosophy, history, and law for more than twenty years. She has served as President of both the American Association for the History of Medicine and the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine. The author of seven other books and many research articles, she holds a number of awards and honours for research, writing, service, and teaching. Her most recent book is an analysis of the medical aspects of canonization, Medical Miracles; Doctors, Saints, and Healing, 1588-1999, OUP 2009.

"Jacalyn Duffin has drawn on her insight as historian and as physician to craft an engrossing exploration of the enduring place of medical saints, pilgrimage, and miracles in the modern world. A welcome scholarly study of faith, healing, and the human condition and a flat-out page turner."--John Harley Warner, Avalon Professor of the History of Medicine, Yale University

"After confirming a diagnosis of fatal leukemia for a patient who went on to make a full recovery, Dr. Jacalyn Duffin found that her report on the case had been entered in support of the cause to make Mère Marguerite d'Youville Canada's first Catholic saint. Duffin, who describes herself as an atheist, set off on a decades-long pilgrimage to find out more. This book is a passionate, sympathetic, and open-eyed account of her journey and what she discovered about the church and humanity. It is a fascinating revelation, showing not only that religion supports medicine while invoking hope and agency, but how little the medical community knows about this side of the lives of ordinary people. Recommended for believer and unbeliever alike."--Harold J. Cook, John F. Nickoll Professor of History, Brown University

"Dr. Duffin spins a lively tale of her personal involvement with a miraculous cure that led to the canonization of a saint, and her studies of medical miracles. As an academic physician and a medical historian, she sensitively and intelligently reflects on the difficulty doctors have with the idea of miracles but how patients can embrace both medical science and the power of prayer to achieve healing."--Jock Murray, Professor Emeritus, Neurology and Medical Humanities, Dalhousie University

"[T]his is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book that should prove valuable to a range of readers, including historians and sociologists of medicine and religion, as well as believers and skeptics of the miraculous." --Journal of the History of Medicine