As a young widow of 26 Marguerite d’Youville became a “Mother of Universal Charity”, dedicating her life to helping the unfortunate. In 1737 she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal (Les Soeurs Grises), a charitable Order which assumed responsibility for the General Hospital of Montreal’s programme dedicated to caring for the poor.

On completing his D.Phil. in neuroanatomy at Oxford and his neurosurgical residency in Montreal, Dr. Feindel worked for two years together with Dr. Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) before moving in 1955 to Saskatchewan to found the Neurosurgical Department at the new University Hospital in Saskatoon.

This exemplary educator began his career as a school teacher and principal in the Montreal area, while simultaneously continuing his studies in psychology. In 1932 he accompanied Dr. Karl Lashley, the most respected physiological psychologist at the time, to Harvard University, where he completed his doctoral research on learning in animals.

Dr. Charles Hollenberg’s academic career began at McGill University in the 1960s, where he carried out an active programme of research in fat metabolism, and actively promoted the growth of scientific medicine at the Montreal General Hospital.

It was while practising surgery and teaching urology at the University of Chicago in the 1930s, that Dr. Huggins discovered that malignant prostate tumours were directly dependent upon the support of male hormones for their growth and proliferation.

Upon returning from graduate study in Cambridge, Dr. Mustard became a Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He and the team he led carried out groundbreaking research on the role of platelets in the coagulation of blood, and the means by which this process could be controlled.