Wilder Penfield (1891-1976)

• neurologist, CC, OM, CMG, KStJ, FRS, FRSC
• born in Spokane Washington
• educated at Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and Oxford universities
• postgraduate work in Europe
• Sir William Osler, whom he met at Oxford, had a great effect on his work
• held posts at Columbia University, Presbyterian Hospital, New York, New York Neurological Institute, and Vanderbilt Clinic before coming to Canada in 1928
• discovered direct electrical stimulation of the brain, and exploited in as a technique for finding damaged areas of the brain during surgery
• the first to undertake a systematic mapping of the brain
• founded the Montreal Neurological Institute, one of the most highly regarded centres for brain surgery in the world, which he directed 1934-1960
• neurosurgeon at Royal Victoria and Montreal General Hospitals, 1928-1960
• Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 1933-1954
• author of several medical books as well as two successful novels, No Other Gods (1954) and The Torch (1960), and a collection of essays The Second Career (1963)
• honours included:
  • Order of Merit, 1953
  • Jacoby Medal, 1953
  • Médaille Lannelongue, 1958
  • Soviet Academy of Sciences, 1959
  • Lister Medal, Royal College of Surgeons, 1961
  • Starr Award, Canadian Medical Association, 1965
  • The Society of the Family of Man Award for Science, 1967
  • Gold Medal, Royal Society of Medicine (London) 1968
• biography: Something hidden: a biography of Wilder Penfield (1981) by Jefferson Lewis

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