(Left) Mary Roach and Peter Gloor (c.1955) (Centre) Peter in the O.R. Gallery (1980) (Right) Herbert Jasper, Massimo Avoli, Peter Gloor (1992)
A
decade later Peter succeeded Herbert Jasper as Chief of the Laboratory of
Electro-encephalography then as Director of the Neuro-physiology
Laboratory at the Neuro. The latter was efficiently supervised
by Nurse Mary Roach, to whom Peter paid tribute on
her retirement. In the meantime I returned from
Saskatoon to become the Cone Professor of Neurosurgery.
So we once again worked together on the amygdala during epilepsy surgery, when Peter would
provide advice from the OR gallery on electrocorticography.
And we co-authored a long review in 1963 on "Affective behavior and temporal lobe". It
was published in a multi-author volume, edited by Professor Monnier from Basel and printed in
Stuttgart, so aside from Peter and myself, I expect there
were
few in North America who became aware of our industrious effort.
Peter was a dedicated teacher of numerous young physicians and scientists and for the technical staff of the EEG Laboratory. He contributed critical studies on experimental epilepsy triggered by penicillin, observations on depth stimulation of the mesial temporal structures and early efforts with Lucas Yamamoto, Jean Gotman and myself to examine epilepsy using PET imaging. An avid historian, Peter was responsible for translating and publishing the pioneer papers of Hans Berger, the psychiatrist who invented EEG.
In
the late 1980s, Peter focused on a major project _ to marshal a full-scale
scholarly critique of the vast canon of literature dealing with the temporal
lobe and its disorders. He was in a unique position to undertake such a
formidable task from his deep understanding of the physiology of the amygdala
and hippocampus, and his continuing involvement in the medical and surgical
treatment of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. Unfortunately, as we all know, in
September of 1994, before he had finished this task, a severe stroke disabled his
language function. Those of us who realized how much effort he had devoted to this
project, and what a fundamental contribution it would make to neurology, devised a
plan to complete and prepare his manuscript for publication as an expression of
our esteem, admiration and friendship for Peter. This definitive monograph,
published in 1997, by Oxford University Press, will continue to speak for Peter Gloor for
years to come.
Luba Genush Gloor, an acclaimed artist, created a splendid mural for the Penfield Pavilion in 1954 in
which she depicted features of the nervous system and neurotechnology.