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Sunday 13 March 2016

Health and Welfare - Sunday Stamps II

I have chosen to go for organisations associated with health and welfare this week.

The Physicians of America were commemorated by this stamp in 1947.

USA - The Doctor (issued 9 June 1947)
This is from a painting by Samuel Luke Fildes, an English painter and illustrator, which hangs in the Tate Gallery. Sir Henry Tate commissioned the work which was painted in 1890.

The 'blurb' for the stamp on the US Stamp Gallery website heads it 'The Doctor, Sir John Fildes' for some reason or another. Apparently it depicts that doctors were no better off then than they had been for centuries, They could only sit and watch as the child depicted died of diphtheria.


The Red Cross is an organisation know world  wide.  On 7 September 1948 the USA issued a commemorative stamp.

USA - Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross

The Salvation Army is well know in the UK. A set of two stamps commemorating its centenary was issued  on 9 May 1965. (I have only one of the set)

Great Britain - Salvation Army centenary

I've written about Joseph Lister before (Lister) on Sunday Stamps but now have both stamps from the set commemorating the centenary of antiseptic surgery.


Great Britain - 1 September 1965
For more health and welfare posts please visit, no appointment needed, Sunday-Stamps-II-65.

8 comments:

Heleen said...

Very interesting stamps, Bob!
I was considering posting Red Cross stamps, too, as dutch post has issued several in the past decennia.
Concerning doctors sitting and waiting, nowadays the problem sometimes is that doctors don't, and that they in some cases do too much , automatically (e.g. harmful, not too well working treatments), where a patient would be better of if the doctor would be listening and (watchful) waiting. Of course in many cases 'to do' is better, but as said, not always when the doctor forgets the 'primer non nocere' concept.

Mail Adventures said...

Good choice! All these stamps were new to me.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Bob - stamps are a great way of teaching us about history and milestones in our ingenuity ... or not - as in the case of the Doctor ...

Good selection here .. cheers Hilary

Joy said...

I'll have to look out for The Doctor next time I visit the Tate.

VioletSky said...

I do feel bad for the doctors who were so limited in their ability to help before the latter half of the 20th C.

Author R. Mac Wheeler said...

Kilroy was here :)

FinnBadger said...

Love that 1890 scene on the 3c US stamp. Amazing how far medicine has progressed,

Ana said...

this was a really sad line 'They could only sit and watch as the child depicted died of diphtheria'.

It is amazing how much the medicine has advanced...but unfortunately in some parts of the world the situation in that field still is terrible...and what I could never understand is why is it so damn expensive to get proper medical treatment....