• • The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada Vol. 8 No. 12 September 28, 1972 Special Convocation Marks Hospital Opening • Sir John Eccles To Be Stevenson Lecturer Professor Sir John Eccles, Nobel Laureate • Dr. D. C. Williams reading the citation for Dr. Wilder G. Penfield who received an in Physiology and Medicine and one of honorary Doctor of Science degree. the greatest living neurobiologists and philosophers of the nervous system, will deliver the first annual Stevenson Lec- ture on Thursday, October 5, at 4:00 p.m. in Lecture Room "A" in the new Univer- sity Hospital. The lecture series was es- tablished by the Faculty of Medicine to honor the memory of the late Professor J.A.F. Stevenson, Head of the Physio- logy Department from 1951 to 1970 and Dean of Graduate Studies at the time of his death in July of last year. Professor Eccles, as he prefers to be ad- dressed, will speak on "The Role of the Brain in Movement and Skill". As a lec- turer, he is particularly noted for his • vitality and his ability to capture the audience's attention as to the new brain- function discoveries. His addresses have always had great appeal both to physio- logists and non-specialists alike. Born in Australia, Professor Eccles ob- tained his medical degree in Melbourne Dr. Marshall McLuhan receives an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Chancel- and, as a Rhodes Scholar, studied with lor John P. Robarts. Sir Charles Sherrington in Oxford where he was awarded the Doctor of Philo- In recognition of the official opening of for Culture and Technology, University sophy. In a lifetime of research into the the new 451-bed University Hospital, a of Toronto, received a Doctor of Let- problems of communication, he has special Convocation was held at Western ters degree. held professorships in Australia, New on Sept. 21. At this 211th Convocation, Zealand and the United States. From Dr. Wilder G. Penfield, Director Emeritus, The citations of these honorary degrees, 1952 to 1966 he was founding Profes- The Montreal Neurological Institute, re- presented by Dr. D.C. Williams to Chan- sor of Physiology at the Australian cellor John P. Robarts follow on page 2. National University, Canberra, which • ceived a Doctor of Science degree, and Marshall McLuhan, Director, centre continued on page 3, column 3} Citations Herbert Marshall McLuhan "If the medium is the message and Mc- lasting changes in him while they trans- turbing notion that our minds are mas- Luhan is the medium, then the message form his environment, both social and saged or manipulated by the power of is controversial. Descriptions of him physical. McLuhan has made it his the mass media. At the same time, the cluster at the extremes of the spectrum business to predict and explain the word 'Massage' carries with it the impli- of public opinion, never in the centre. mutual repercussions on man and so- cation that the mass media are for the To quote his critics, 'his ideas range ciety of this technological-electronic Mass Age, an age that rapidly threatens from the demented to the dangerous': revolution. to become the Mess Age largely because they are 'nonsense adulterated with half we have sold our intellectual birthright truths', and he is dismissed as the 'guru "Again we may ask what, in traditional to the media for a pot of message. And of the boob tube'. To all of which his terms, is his medium? While many such so it goes. Like a Bach fugue, once a supporters retort - 'What if he is right? are employed his favorite is clearly the basic McLuhanism is enunciated, it is Suppose he is what he sounds like - the aphorism; the short, pithy, paradoxical extraordinary how many variations its most important figure since Freud, Marx, statement that simultaneously outrages, elaboration permits. And, Mr. Chancel- Einstein and Pavlov?'. 'The most extra- amuses, and intrigues the reader while lor, it is just as well that these variations ordinary quality of McLuhan's mind', forcing him to challenge his own com- are possible, since, if we were now they say, 'is that it discerns significance fortable assumptions. Let us take the solemnly to assert the identity Of medium where others see only data', a comment aphorism, 'the medium is the message', and message, we would do ourselves out that is uncannily reminiscent of A.N. as an example and analyse it. To begin of a Convocation address! Whitehead's remark that 'it requires a with it contradicts the accepted dif- very unusual mind to undertake the ference between ideas and the means analysis of the obvious'. McLuhan's is used to convey them. More broadly it "This capacity to challenge, antagonize, that unusual mind which analyses the also contradicts the classic difference and upset, but above all to involve the obvious where others merely flagellate it. between form and content while slyly minds of others in his intellectual adven- suggesting that media themselves im- tures marks McLuhan as a teacher in the "What, in traditional terms, is his mes- plant subliminal messages quite dif- great tradition. Whereas Socrates asked sage? Simply, that media per se exert ferent from those that attract our at- questions and drew the answers he wanted a profound and compelling influence on tention. But the fun does not end there from his students, McLuhan asserts para- man and society. This comes about be- with a devoted punster like McLuhan at doxical conclusions and forces his stu- cause all such technological innovations the helm. 'The Medium', a recent title dents to question their assumptions. are extensions of man's abilities and sen- of his suggests, is also 'the Massage', a What is less well known is that he origi- sations; extensions that cause deep and variation that bluntly espouses the dis- nally made his mark as an English scholar Wilder Graves Penfield "Mr. Chancellor, the name of Wilder years found him attracted first by his made Penfield's name as a surgeon was Penfield is a synonym for many good biological studies at Princeton, then by that this new technique not only fully things. It is, for example, synonymous neurology, and finally by neurosurgery. cured half his patients but greatly im- with the Montreal Neurological Insti- It is characteristic of the man that though proved half of the remainder. What tute, with McGill and indeed with Ca- forced to return home from his studies in made his name as a researcher was the nada. Dr. Penfield founded the first, Europe because of a lack of money, he sequence of events set off in 1931 when was an ornament on the faculty of the refused a lucrative offer in Detroit, ac- on touching the temporal lobe of a second, and kept the third on the medi- cepting instead a lesser salary at Colum- middle-aged female patient with'his cal map of the world in the great tradi- bia where he could do research. Shortly probe, she immediately began to des- tion of SirWilliam Osier whose student thereafter he moved to Johns Hopkins cribe the birth of her child with all the he was as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. where again his energy and imagination vividness of one actually going through We at Western are particularly beholden led quickly to the invitation to join the the experience. Thus began the famous to him in that, inspired by his example, staff of McGill as a neurosurgeon. It research series into the mysteries of we too are dedicated to the establish- should be noted too, that this late- brain function. ment of another centre of excellence flowering devotion to medicine was pre- in the Neurological Sciences. ceded by such devotion to football at "Asked once if he ever operated for re- Princeton as to earn him an offer to re- search purposes only, Dr. Penfield indig- "Dr. Penfield is one of those doctor's turn as coach! nantly replied that his operations were sons who having witnessed the impos- performed only to improve the condition sible demands visited on his father as a "Having received some of the best train- of his patients, but then he added, 'we rural general practitioner, sternly re- ing available in basic medical science and have, however, when safety permitted it, solved never to practice medicine. In- neurosurgery, he used this background to lingered a little on the way in the in- deed it is said he even chose Princeton great advantage in perfecting in Montreal terests of research'. This 'lingering' and as his Alma Mater not simply because his new surgical treatment for epilepsy. the immense insights it yielded in the it was good, but because it had no Medi- This involved exposing that surface of the treatment of brain dysfunction the world cal School. The psychologist in me, brain from which the epilepsy originated over led to his founding the famous Mr. Chancellor, whispers that a man who and touching it systematically with an Montreal Neurological Institute; an in- truly had no vocation for medicine electrical probe. The conscious patient stitutiorrdesigned to bring together all would not even have thought to take under local anaesthetic, reports his sen- the specialisms in both the basic and this precaution! Having thus let the sations, thereby helping to identify the clinical sciences relating to the brain. psychological cat out of the medical damaged areas which, thus isolated, may In the depths of the Great Depression bag, it is not surprising that subsequent then be removed without harm. What the Rockefeller Foundation under the Classical Studies Professor Sir John Eccles Appoints Noted Author Continued From Page 1 As Visiting Professor under his leadership became an interna- tional centre for brain research.