William Howard Feindel (July 12, 1918 – January 12, 2014) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

neurosurgeon Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

, scientist and professor. Born in Bridgewater,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, he received a B.A. in Biology from

Acadia University Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadia ...

in 1939, a M.Sc. from Dalhousie University in 1942, and an M.D., C.M. from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

in 1945. Attending Merton College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar he received his D. Phil in 1949. After completing his residency, Feindel was in neurosurgical practice for two years with

Wilder Penfield Wilder Graves Penfield (January 26, 1891April 5, 1976) was an American-Canadian neurosurgeon. He expanded brain surgery's methods and techniques, including mapping the functions of various regions of the brain such as the cortical homunculus. ...

at the

Montreal Neurological Institute The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC; french: Centre universitaire de santé McGill) is one of two major healthcare networks in the city of Montreal, Quebec. It is affiliated with McGill University and is one of the largest medical complex in ...

. In 1955 he founded the Neurosurgical Department at the University Hospital in

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as th ...

. In 1959 Feindel re-joined the Montreal Neurological Institute where he founded the William Cone Laboratory for Neurosurgical Research and became the first William Cone Professor of Neurosurgery and then Director of the MNI from 1972 to 1984. During this tenure he led a clinical neuroscience team to acquire the first

CAT The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

and combined MRI/S units in Canada and to develop the world's first Positron emission tomography, PET system utilizing a prototype Japanese "Baby" cyclotron and the MNI-designed BGO crystal PET scanner for detecting brain tumours and stroke. He integrated these systems into a Brain Imaging Center (BIC), within a major extension of the MNI, opened in 1984 and since then recognized as a leading world center for clinical diagnosis, teaching and research in neuro-imaging. In the early 1950s, during brain mapping studies with Penfield and Jasper, Feindel discovered the role of the amygdala in patients with temporal lobe seizures, which, with related studies at the MNI, led to the operation of antero-mesial temporal lobe resection often referred to as "the Montreal procedure", an operation adopted worldwide for the surgical cure of many thousands of patients with epilepsy. Feindel was curator of the Wilder Penfield Archive. He was the Chancellor of

from 1991 to 1996 and then Honorary Governor. In 1998 he was elected Honorary Osler Librarian by the Board of Curators of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University. At the 2005 Neuro Convocation, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award of the Montreal Neurological Institute. He was Senior Consultant in Neurosurgery and Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University and Director of the Neuro-History Project at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He died at the Montreal Neurological Institute after a brief illness.

Honours

* In 1963 he received an honorary DSc from Acadia University. * In 1973 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. * In 1982 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. * In 1983 he received an honorary LLD from Mt Allison University. * In 1984 he received an honorary D.Sc from

. * In 1989 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan. * In 2002 he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. * In 2003 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. * In 2004 he was inducted into L'Academie des Grand Montrealais.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feindel, William 1918 births 2014 deaths Acadia University alumni Dalhousie University alumni McGill University Faculty of Medicine alumni Canadian medical researchers Canadian Rhodes Scholars Canadian university and college chancellors Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Grand Officers of the National Order of Quebec Officers of the Order of Canada Canadian neurosurgeons People from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia