For forty years, James Langstaff (1825-1889) practiced medicine in a small town near Toronto. He witnessed the advent of anesthesia, antisepsis, new drug remedies, germ theory, and public health. Chapters are devoted to his management of surgery, obstetrics, and diseases, especially in women and children, his finances, and his role and that of his suffragist wife in the political and social fabric of their community. A reformer and temperance advocate, Langstaff was quick to adopt medical innovations, but slow to abandon familiar practices.