Barbara Brookes is an associate professor in the history department, University of Otago. One of her research interests is the history of medicine and her work in this field has acted as a catalyst for students. She has supervised several of the students whose work appears in this book. Jane Thomson is an independent editor who worked with Michael Reilly on another volume of student essays, When the Waves Rolled in Upon Us: Essays in Nineteenth-Centry Maori History, also published by University of Otago Press.