This paper reviews the history of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University from their origins within the Departments of Medicine and of Surgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1894, to the creation of an autonomous Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery in 1928 at the Montreal Neurological Institute. The argument is made that the collaboration of James Stewart and James Bell and of Colin Russel and Edward Archibald in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological patients created an institutional culture that favored the integration of neurology, neurosurgery, and allied disciplines within a departmental structure and the creation of the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Psychosurgery refers to the surgical interruption of the white matter fibres joining the frontal cortex to the remainder of the cortical mantle and to the thalamus, in an attempt to mitigate the manifestations of psychosis. It reached its heyday following World War Two and was abandoned with the introduction of major tranquilisers such as chlorpromazine. Wilder Penfield, unlike most of his contemporaries, had a jaundiced view of psychosurgery. This paper addresses Penfield’s early experience with experimental, penetrating brain trauma and with the surgical resection of frontal, epileptogenic lesions, which explain his antagonism towards psychosurgery.

Edouard Hitzig [1838 – 1907] may have been an autocratic, proud and overbearing psychiatrist, but his pioneer work in using electrical stimulation changed utterly the approach to research into the localisation of function in the cerebral hemispheres. If he was vain he had much to be vain about.