Is There a Doctor In the House? A Case History, in Cartoons, on Saskatchewan’s Medical Care Plan

Card covers, saddle stitched with staples, unpaginated (28 printed pages), oblong 8x10 - 20x25 cm, B&W illustrations.

Covers lightly soiled along spine and worn, corners bumped. Front cover rubbed at edges, back cover edge-tanned. Spine worn. Title page verso and unpaginated fifth page stamped by previous owner. Pages lightly tanned.

After starting at the Saskatoon “Star Phoenix” engraving zinc plates for printing, Ed Sebestyen became the newspaper’s editorial cartoonist in the mid-1950s (eventually rising to editorial and management positions and receiving an appointment to the Order of Canada in 1993). The “Star Phoenix” published four volumes of Sebestyen’s cartoons between 1959 and 1962, the last being “Is There a Doctor In the House?”. The book contains political cartoons depicting pushback from medical practitioners after the passing of the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act in 1961. Brief commentary or explanatory remarks accompany each cartoon. No publication date, but the volume’s cartoons all initially ran in 1962, necessitating a publication date of 1962 or later.