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The Mind Mappers: Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain
Eric Andrew-Gee
Random House Canada
2025, Toronto, Canada
ISBN: 978-1-03-900806-9
Review by Stephen Morrissey
The Mind
Mappers, Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain
Eric Andrew-Gee
Random House Canada
2025, Toronto, Canada
ISBN: 978-1-03-900806-9
By Stephen Morrissey
Some books are read for entertainment, for example detective novels; some books are read because we want to learn something new, about politics, the lives of famous people, beekeeping, how to play chess, or something else; the really important books, in my experience, are those that we read and learn something about ourselves, that inspire us to go more deeply into ourselves, that help us to see things in a new way, and these are the books that I enjoy the most. This was my experience with Eric Andrew-Gee's The Mind Mappers, Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain (2025). Right from page one I liked this book; I liked Andrew-Gee's writing, I appreciated his thorough research, I liked his occasional references to literature; and I liked his knowledge of the English-speaking community in Montreal, our history, and our accomplishments. These include the founding of the Montreal Neurological Institute, familiarly known as The Neuro, and still pre-eminent among neurological hospitals.
Andrew-Gee's book
is about the co-founders of The Neuro, Dr. Wilder Penfield and Dr. William Cone;
they had been close friends, beginning in
the 1920s at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and then, in 1929, at The
Montreal Neurological Institute. Dr. Cone was a private person, not given to
talking about himself or promoting himself; he was self-effacing, and he
preferred to stay in the shadow of his oldest friend and colleague Dr. Wilder
Penfield, who was nick-named "The Chief" when he was director of The
Neuro, where Cone was affectionately known as "The Boss". Dr.
Penfield remains a fairly flat, one dimensional, character until the book's
"Epilogue: Through a Glass Darkly", in which we read of how Penfield grew
away from neuroscience in his later years; after retirement he wrote novels,
his autobiography, and advocated for causes that were important for him.
With Penfield's
announcement in the late 1950s that he planned to retire from the directorship
of The Neuro it was assumed that Dr. Cone would be promoted to that position,
it should have been the pinnacle of Dr. Cone's career, a confirmation of
Penfield's belief in him and confidence in Cone's ability, but he was passed
over by Penfield. Cone wasn't even on the short list of possible candidates. I
emphasize this to show how deeply betrayed Cone must have felt by the way he
was treated by Penfield; but it was not only betrayal Cone felt, it was also humiliation
at being passed over for a position that most of his colleagues felt he was
next in line for and rightfully deserved. Dr. Cone committed suicide in his
office at The Neuro on 4 May 1959.
In
personality and temperament Dr. Cone and Dr. Penfield were very different
people. On one hand, we have Cone with his unhappy childhood, a time of illness
for him including the deaths of his father and grandfather, and later his
profoundly unhappy marriage, and now there was betrayal by his oldest friend
and colleague. Dr. Cone must have wondered if his friendship with Penfield had ever
really existed, or had he deceived himself all of these years? On the other hand,
we have Penfield who was doted over by his mother and much loved by her and by
his wife, children, and grandchildren; he was an extrovert whose later ambition
was to win a Nobel Prize for his discoveries in neuroscience. Cone was
psychologically complex while Penfield lacked this complexity. Penfield's image
of respectability was flawless except for one major flaw, it is his betrayal of
his best friend.
After
visiting The Neuro in April of this year I remembered that I had, at home, ever
since it was first published in 1967, a copy of Wilder Penfield's Man
and his Family; a few days later I read Penfield's book, its theme is the importance
of family in society, that for children the foundation of family life is
essential to a healthy adult life. The book is worth reading for its ideas but
it is not well written. After retirement from The Neuro Penfield served as
president of the Vanier Institute of the Family, he was one of the last people
to meet with Governor General Georges Vanier the day before Vanier died.
My first time
visiting The Neuro was in October 1969 to visit my stepfather who had brain
tumour surgery there in the late 1950s; he seemed to have recovered and it was
several years after this surgery that he married my mother. Surgery was needed again
in 1966 for a second tumour removal; The Neuro's director, my stepfather's
surgeon, and successor to Dr. Penfield, was Dr. Theodore Rasmussen. This second
surgery was not a success and for the next three years my stepfather lived
alternately at home for a few weeks, then in residences (one in Rawdon,
Quebec), and his physical and mental decline continued until his return to The
Neuro in the fall of 1969. I don't know how my mother survived those years, my
stepfather did not survive. I should add that today the postoperative
mortality rate for brain tumour surgery is about 35%, and it was much lower sixty years ago
in 1966.
I
remember my visit to The Neuro in late October 1969; my stepfather was in a bed
directly across from the door of his hospital room, one that was shared with
perhaps, three or four other patients. I was nineteen years old and had just
started university. I remember trying consciously to think of something
reassuring and kind to say to my stepfather, I said something before leaving, and
as someone who remembers so much, who has made memory the basis of much of my
writing, I just can't remember what I said to him. I do remember the morning, a
few days later, that my mother received a phone call from The Neuro, telling
her that he had died; I was lying in bed upstairs and I could hear the phone
ring and my mother answer and speak to whoever was calling, but I knew intuitively
what the call was about. It was more relief that we felt than anything else, it
was the end of my stepfather's suffering. But relief is short lived and grief has
a long afterlife.
Now, here
is an interesting coincidence regarding my stepfather. Dr. Penfield's
book, Man and His Family, was made up of his Josiah
Wood Lectures on the family, lectures given at Mount Allison
University in Sackville, New Brunswick. My copy of this book was
"presented to us under the terms of the Josiah Wood lectureship". The
coincidence is that Josiah Wood was my stepfather's grandfather; Josiah
Wood's daughter, Dora Beatrice Wood, married Mark
Edgar Nichols, who was a founder of the Canadian Press and editor of
newspapers in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver, and they had three sons, Mark,
Charles, and my stepfather Graham Nichols.
I admire Drs. Penfield and Cone. Their personal and professional story, one that is not commonly known, as it is described by Eric Andrew-Gee, only increases my admiration and appreciation for these two men and their advances in neuroscience. Their most enduring legacy, other than important innovative surgical techniques and the significant mapping of the areas of the brain, is the founding of the Montreal Neurological Institute; The Neuro is an important place for neurological research and patient care, it is a place of dedicated doctors and nurses. But there is a human dimension and Mr. Andrew-Gee's book explores this aspect of The Neuro in the relationship of its co-founders, he does so with superb research. Andrew-Gee writes,
Both Cone and Penfield felt their lives were failures in different ways, and it is true that in some areas they fell short. The bitterest failure of all was the most meaningful: Cone and Penfield mapped the brain but lost each other.
He
continues,
As the medical historian Yan Prkachin has argued, the "interdisciplinary environment created within the walls of the Montreal Neurological Institute constitutes the key site for the foundation of modern neuroscience."
Andrew-Gee concludes by writing, "Cone and Penfield may not have perfected neurosurgery or discovered the seat of the soul. But to anyone who has tried since—or tried to fathom the many other mysteries of the universe in our heads—they were not failures at all." (p. 290)
Eric Andrew-Gee's The Mind Mappers, Friendship, Betrayal and the Obsessive Quest to Chart the Brain takes us deeply into the relationship of Dr. Wilder Penfield and Dr. William Cone and the founding of the Montreal Neurological Institute; it was an historical period that includes tragedy, betrayal, love, selfless commitment, and the fragility of human relationships.
About the author: Stephen Morrissey is the
author of twelve books, including poetry and literary criticism. He graduated
with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Honours in English with Distinction, from Sir
George Williams University (now Concordia University) in 1973. In 1976, he
graduated with a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from McGill
University. In the 1970s, Morrissey was associated with the Véhicule
Poets. The Stephen Morrissey Fonds, 1963 - 2014, are housed at Rare Books and Special Collections of the McLennan Library at McGill
University. Stephen Morrissey married Vancouver poet Carolyn Zonailo in 1995.
Visit the poet at www.stephenmorrissey.ca
