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Winnipeg Free Press

Bond between brain docs led to crucial breakthroughs

Since the early 1990s, the charitable organization Historica Canada has produced over 100 'Historical Minutes,' video tributes to important Canadians across many fields and specialties. One vignette, about Dr. Wilder Penfield, dramatically shows his discovery of the area in a patient's brain which triggers the smell of burnt toast and signals her seizures. Dr. Penfield is credited with this game-changing advance in neurological surgery and treatment. Quebec Globe and Mail correspondent Eric Andrew-Gee begins his excellent first book with this moment, determining to expand the record, telling the detailed story of the Montreal Neurological Institute — The Neuro — and the close relationship between 'the Chief,' Penfield, and his colleague and friend 'the Boss,' William Cone. Mackenzie Lad photo Eric Andrew-Gee Andrew-Gee's intricately researched and plotted paean to these surgical pioneers reads like a novel. It traces Cone and Penfield's decades of investigation, exploration and treatment of problems with humanity's most complicated and mysterious organ. The two met at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia, finding 'a remarkable amount in common: they were both fatherless Midwesterners from medical families with dreams of transforming neurosurgery.' Collaborating in learning various aspects of the art — not yet a science — from practitioners around the world, Penfield and Cone eventually gain international fame. Penfield is hired by Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital, on the condition they hire Cone as well. The development of their differing styles and areas of study, and the inevitable conflicts which their friendship covers, make for fascinating reading. Information about hospital conditions, and specific advances and inventions, as well as insight into the politics and culture of 20th-century Quebec intersperse the narrative. Andrew-Gee likens the pair to the 'two solitudes' of Hugh MacLennan's novel of the same name about language and relationships in Quebec and to the two halves of the brain. Penfield, known for intricate study of what different parts of the brain do, was the head of the Institute, focusing on memory and the effects and relief of epilepsy. More generally, he searched for the human mind residing in the physical brain. Cone was intent on patient care, from prepping to surgery to follow-up. He was obsessed with sterility (his father had died of typhoid fever caught from tainted water) and kept unhealthy hours on the job, all to the benefit of others. As in the 'Historical Minute,' Penfield was the face of the operation, publishing and receiving accolades for the work which they shared. 'Fortunately for the harmony of the institute,' notes Andrew-Gee, 'Cone didn't care about credit.' Cone was happiest when busy, and thrived when he served with the Canadian military medical corps at Hackwood, an English estate vacated by its baronial owner for the war effort. Cone, 'no longer Penfield's subordinate,' now led 'a hospital twice as big as The Neuro in the thick of history's most decisive conflict — and he was excelling.' Reunited in Montreal later in the war, the two continued to new heights in the treatment of brain injuries and illnesses, to international acclaim for Penfield. The Mind Mappers Andrew-Gee describes Cone's increasing symptoms of alienation, while still maintaining a breakneck schedule and his closeness to Penfield. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Readers today will recognize clear signs of clinical depression, noticed but ignored at the time — ironically, in that centre of near-miraculous neurological discovery and development. After the much-foreshadowed tragic end of the collaboration, Andrew-Gee includes multiple tributes to Cone which demonstrate that 'he had shown… what it means to be a good doctor.' This chronicle of the friendship between Penfield and Cone demonstrates how relationships should work, acknowledging issues and weaknesses, while celebrating the positive and productive results of altruism and decency. Bill Rambo is a mostly retired teacher who lives in Landmark.