Abstract
Dr Feindel's many contributions to medical science were recognized in 2003, when he was among the earliest inductees into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. The induction was one of numerous honours accorded to him, including honorary degrees and membership in the Order of Canada, the Ordre national du Québec (Grand Officier), the Académie des Grand Montréalais, and the Royal Society of Canada. Dr Feindel was an accomplished neurosurgeon, technological innovator, visionary administrator, inspiring teacher, and possessed talents beyond the realm of medicine. His accomplishments live on at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, which he helped to bring to world prominence, and in the many medical fellows whom he mentored throughout his long career.
William Howard Feindel was born on 12 July 1918 in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. He earned his undergraduate degree at Acadia University, where many years later he would serve as a Chancellor. After graduation, he attended Merton College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a D. Phil. in neuroanatomy. In Montreal during the Second World War, Dr Feindel worked to develop treatments for war injuries along with The Neuro's founder and first director, Dr Wilder Penfield. After earning his medical degree at McGill University and further studies in neurosurgery at Oxford, Dr Feindel became the first professor of neurosurgery at the medical college in Saskatoon in 1955. Seeing the potential of brain scanning equipment, he developed the first automatic isotope scanner.
Dr Feindel returned to ‘The Neuro’ in 1959 as the first William Cone. Professor of Neurosurgery. Three years later, he was appointed as The Neuro's neurosurgeon-in-chief. A researcher who contributed to more than 500 scientific papers, Dr Feindel had special interest in determining the causes of focal epilepsy, as well as in finding methods for the early detection of brain tumours and strokes. He helped to develop what came to be known as the Montreal Procedure for temporal lobe epilepsy, which involved the surgical resection of the antero-mesial temporal lobe. The procedure was subsequently adopted throughout the world, leading to cures for thousands of epilepsy patients. Dr Feindel was the main catalyst for the founding of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism and subsequently the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. He was also the President of the 13th International Symposium on Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Montreal, June 1987.
During his tenure as The Neuro's director from 1972 to 1984, Dr Feindel largely introduced revolutionary brain scanning tools to Canada, acquiring the country's first CAT, MR, and PET units. McGill inaugurated the William Feindel Chair in Neuro-Oncology in 2001 with the support of the Clive Baxter Memorial Fund.
Along with his scientific research papers, Dr Feindel also wrote extensively on topics of medical history, especially about the work of Thomas Willis, the seventeenth-century British pioneer in brain research who coined the term, ‘neurology’. In 1964, Dr Feindel published a facsimile in English of Willis's treatise of 1664, ‘Cerebri Anatome’ (Anatomy of the Brain and Nerves). The Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University elected Dr Feindel as Honorary Osler Librarian in 1984.
Dr Feindel also published a collection of his historical observations about life and work at The Neuro in 2013 as Images of the Neuro. He was also an avid amateur pianist and violinist, performing along with his colleagues at ‘The Neuro's’ annual variety show.
Dr Feindel was married to Faith (née Lyman), with whom he had three sons Christopher (Mary Ann), Michael (Karen), and Alexander (1985, Ling), and three daughters, Patricia, Janet (Robert), and Anna, two grandsons Michael (Laura) and Andrew (Tina) and a great grandson Finn.