McGill Medicine, Volume II, 1885-1936

This second volume in the history of the McGill University Medical School begins a few years before the opening of the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1894 and traces the major developments in the institutions second half century. At the beginning of this period the McGill Faculty of Medicine was already ranked as among the best in North America, but its reputation had declined by World War I. During the next twenty years major reforms created new research laboratories, expanded library facilities, and continued modernization of the Royal Victoria Hospital. The Montreal Neurological Institute was opened, a children's hospital was established, and the Montreal General Hospital was expanded. McGill Medicine is also the story of the doctors and administrators who made all this happen: visionaries such as Principal Sir Arthur Currie and Dr C.F. Martin, who shepherded the concept of full-time faculty through the various approval processes of the school; Dr J.C. Meakins, who became, in 1924, the first full-time professor of medicine; and Dr Wilder Penfield, the founder and first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute. The book ends just before WWII, by which time McGill again held an enviable place among the worlds medical teaching institutions.