McGill Medicine is also the story of the doctors and administrators who made all this happen: visionaries such as Principal Sir Arthur Currie and Dr C.F. Martin, who shepherded the concept of full-time faculty through the various approval processes of the school; Dr J.C. Meakins, who became, in 1924, the first full-time professor of medicine; and Dr Wilder Penfield, the founder and first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, among many others.

Officially founded in 1819, the Montreal General Hospital is recognized as a pioneering institution in North America for the many discoveries in medical research made there and for its early association with the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University - the first medical school in Canada. Covering nearly 200 years of history, The General relates the story of the hospital from its origins and founding to the transition and aftermath of its incorporation into the McGill University Health Centre in 1997. With contributions that show the perspectives of clinicians, nurses, surgeons, professors, and administrators, chapters chronicle the history of particular departments and specializations of the hospital, including cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, obstetrics, emergency medicine, pathology, and radiology, as well as nursing, administration, and governance. Among the major turning points in the history of the hospital were the introduction of autopsy pathology by Sir William Osler, the debut of the electrocardiograph by Thomas Cotton in 1914, the discovery of a malignant tumour marker by Phil Gold and Samuel Freedman in 1965, its transformation from a community hospital serving anglophone Montreal to an internationally recognized academic centre during the 1950s and ’60s, and changes in governance due to the 1970 Quebec Medicare Act. Both a collective reminiscence and an extensive institutional history, The General is an engaging account of one prominent hospital’s development over nearly 200 years.

The life of the war surgeon who became principal of McGill University in the midst of political, student, and faculty unrest.

When Richard Alan Stikeman, an incredible businessman, community leader, and family man, died from malignant mesothelioma, his family, friends, and community established the Stikeman Fund for Surgical Advancement and the Stikeman Visiting Professorship in order to commemorate him. Dr Dag Munro, Stikeman's treating surgeon, proposed the concept of an annual visiting professor as a unique way to honour his patient. The primary goal of the fund was to enhance surgical education for students, residents, and faculty in the McGill University Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. In the words of one of the founders – Richard's brother Heward Stikeman – it should "sharpen people" and keep McGill's program at the forefront of cardiothoracic education. Former residents were invited to return on an annual basis. Surgical research was added to the program and benefited from the wisdom of fifty world-class visitors. This contributed to a high degree of loyalty, adhesion, and philanthropy to the division. The Stikeman Visiting Professorship has thus unified cardiothoracic surgery under the McGill umbrella: Dr A.R.C. Dobell identified the professorship as the glue that holds the division together. The Stikeman Visiting Professorship has emerged over the years as an important McGill legacy, its growth and duration a tribute to its founders, builders, and supporters. This book is a celebration of that legacy.

Although the United States did not enter the First World War until April 1917, Canada enlisted the moment Great Britain engaged in the conflict in August 1914. The Canadian contribution was great, as more than 600,000 men and women served in the war effort—400,000 of them overseas—out of a population of 8 million. More than 150,000 were wounded and nearly 67,000 gave their lives. The war was a pivotal turning point in the history of the modern world, and its mindless slaughter shattered a generation and destroyed seemingly secure values. The literature that the First World War generated, and continues to generate so many years later, is enormous and addresses a multitude of cultural and social matters in the history of Canada and the war itself. Although many scholars have brilliantly analyzed the literature of the war, little has been done to catalog the writings of ordinary participants: men and women who served in the war and wrote about it but are not included among well-known poets, novelists, and memoirists. Indeed, we don’t even know how many titles these people published, nor do we know how many more titles were added later by relatives who considered the recollections or collected letters worthy of publication. Brian Douglas Tennyson’s The Canadian Experience of the Great War: A Guide to Memoirs is the first attempt to identify all of the published accounts of First World War experiences by Canadian veterans.

When Charles Miller Fisher was born in 1913 there was very little scientific knowledge about stroke. But thanks to him, our understanding of stroke and of other brain disorders are now well established in every neurology training program around the world. C. Miller Fisher is his story: his life, his method of study and of research, and his contributions. This work, reinforced with unequalled access to the CMF archives overseen by the Fisher estate and told in his own words (italicized in the text) from his memoirs, will shed light on one of the most important clinicians in North America and the world. He devoted his career and the great majority of every waking day to the study of stroke, both in the pathology laboratory and in people. Fisher's discoveries and contributions and those of the individuals that he trained changed the knowledge basis of stroke and vascular disease for everyone.