Wilder Penfield

Dr. Wilder Graves Penfield C.C.,Ph.D (January 25/26, 1891 - April 5, 1976) was a American-born Canadian neurosurgeon.

He was born in Spokane, Washington, and studied at Princeton University before winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University and obtaining his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University. He spent several years training at Oxford (where he knew William Osler), and in Spain, Germany and New York.

Penfield was a groundbreaking researcher and devoted surgeon. He treated patients with severe epilepsy by destroying nerve cells in the brain where the seizures originated. Before operating, he stimulated the brain with electrical probes while the patients were conscious on the operating table (under only local anesthesia), and observed their responses. In this way he could more accurately target the areas of the brain responsible, reducing the side-effects of the surgery.

This technique also allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain showing their connections to the various limbs and organs of the body. These maps are still used today, practically unaltered. He also discovered that stimulation of the temporal lobes could lead to vivid recall of memories.

During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian." He devoted much thinking to the functionings of the mind, and continued until his death to contemplate whether there was any scientific basis for the existence of the human soul.

He moved to Montreal in 1928 to teach at McGill University and became the city's first neurosurgeon. In 1934 became the first Director of McGill University's Montreal Neurological Institute and the associated Montreal Neurological Hospital, which he helped establish with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. He retired in 1960.

In 1967 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

In 1994 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Avenue Docteur-Penfield, on the slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, was named in Penfield's honour on October 5, 1978. Part of this avenue borders McGill's campus.