Edward William Archibald

neurosurgeon

honorary doctorate

bilingual. To this end, the young Archibald was sent to Grenoble, France by his parents to study upon reaching adolescence.^[1] In 1888, after returning to Canada, Archibald entered the McGill University Faculty of Arts, graduating from there with a Bachelor of Arts in 1892. He continued at McGill, entering medical school and graduating with a Doctor of Medicine in 1896. There, he became interested in the medical specialisation field of surgery, and although the invention of general anaesthesia and other technological improvements made surgery a fast-moving field, Archibald said that he opted to become a surgeon due to the logic involved and the application of theoretical knowledge in practice. The young doctor began his surgical career with a three-year program at McGill University, with what was essentially an apprenticeship in the field at Royal Victoria Hospital, which had opened only a few years earlier. Archibald also spent a year in Europe, where he studied under the guidance of Ludwig Aschoff and Jan Mikulicz-Radecki. He was impressed the most by the surgical methods of the latter, which were groundbreaking for the time.^[2][3]

thoracic surgery. When World War I began, Archibald went with the Third Canadian General Hospital to France, where he was able to apply his experience in combating the disease to the patients he encountered on the war front.^[4] The surgeon was also greatly interested in the education of new surgeons, and believed that the standard of doctor education had been declining, leaving incapable surgeons to perform procedures. Archibald returned to McGill University, this time as a staff member in the Department of Surgery, and revitalised it following almost thirty years of stagnation. In 1929, he served as a member of the first Royal College of Surgeons of Canada Examining Board in Surgery, and after becoming President of the American Surgical Association in 1935, made a speech entitled Higher Degrees in the Profession of Surgery, triggering the formation of the American Board of Surgery. On June 26, 1936, he gave a talk at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Medical Association.^[5] He was also considered a key influence in the surgical education of Norman Bethune, however he reportedly disapproved of Bethune and his actions.^[2][4][6] Additionally, he was a mentor to Wilder Penfield, another famous physician who worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital

honorary Doctor of Medicine by the University of Paris.^[4] Archibald had published several scholarly papers on his experiences and research, including Observations upon shock, with particular reference to the condition as seen in war surgery (1917), A note upon the employment of blood transfusion in war surgery (1916), Further data concerning the experimental production of pancreatitis (1921) and A brief survey of some experiences in the surgery of the present war (1916).^[7] However, despite the mental demands of his profession, Archibald was described in his obituary as being "a... distressingly absent-minded character".^[3][8] His archives are held at McGill University, in the Osler Library of the History of Medicine^[9] and the McGill University Archives.^[10]