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William Osler, the Rockefellers, and
the Montreal Neurological Institute*
William Feindel, oc, mdcm, frcsc;
Professor of Neurosurgery, McGill University

ABSTRACT

Background
For the 150th anniversary of William Osler's birth and the 65th anniversary of the Montreal Neurological Institute, this report summarizes how deeply these two events influenced the development of neurology, neurosurgery and neurosciences in Canada and beyond.

Methods
Sources consulted included the Osler Archives, Wilder Penfield Archive, the McGill Archives and the Rockefeller Foundation Archives.

Results.

  1. William Osler, during the years 1872-1884 at McGill became Canada's first neuropathologist; his exhibit at Ottawa in 1880 sampled the range of his material.
  2. Of Osler's 1400 publications, 250 related to neurology.
  3. He knew Gowers, Jackson, Mitchell, Marie and Charcot, and through his support of Horsley and Cushing, promoted "medico-chirurgical neurology".
  4. In 1919, a request from Osler resulted in the Rockefeller Foundation granting $5,000,000 for Canada's medical schools. McGill got $1,750,000.
  5. McGill's excellent decade of re-organization spurred by Rockefeller funds set the stage for another grant in 1932 of $1,232,652 to establish the Montreal Neurological Institute.
  6. Over the past 65 years the "Neuro" became recognized worldwide, particularly for the surgery of epilepsy, neuroimaging and molecular neurobiology. The new Brain Tumor Research Centre expands this field begun at McGill by Osler in 1872-1884.


OSLER AND THE ROCKEFELLERS

          It was Osler's popular textbook of 1892, The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which instigated Frederick Gates to persuade John D. Rockefeller Sr. to direct his immense fortune to medical research. While at Johns Hopkins, Osler received an unexpected letter from Frederick Gates dated 4 of March 1902. The letter read in part:

"Some years ago, in carrying out a determination to become more intelligent as a layman on the subject of the current and common diseases, I purchased a copy of your Principles and Practice of Medicine, on the advice of a bright young medical friend. Happening to receive it just as I was to start on a vacation, I took the book with me and read it from beginning to end, with absorbing interest, and with a medical dictionary at my side.
In reading it I was impressed especially with the vast numbers of diseases that are certainly or probably originated by bacteria ……and the vast possibilities for good lying in this field of research opened up before my imagination and fired my enthusiasm
I, therefore, laid the matter before Mr. Rockefeller, and sought to impart to him my own interest, kindled by the reading of your book, in bacteriological research. His enthusiasm was easily kindled …… and the result was the Rockefeller Institute, of which you remember Dr. Welch is the Chairman, with an initial and tentative working fund of $200,000 with which to experiment ……, Mr. Rockefeller contributed a million dollars to the Harvard School [because of] the very superior work done at that institution… Both of these gifts grew directly out of your book. It has occurred to me that possibly you might be gratified to know of an incidental and perhaps to you quite unexpected good which your valuable work has wrought."

(*Extracts from a forthcoming book titled "The Brain's Image: History of the Montreal Neurological Insitute",
McGill_Queen's University Press)

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