![Figure](https://www.canjsurg.ca/content/cjs/49/2/137/F1.medium.gif)
Born and raised in Montréal, Edward Archibald graduated from McGill University Medical School in 1896. After 3 years as a surgical houseman and a year with von Mikulicz in Germany, he returned to the Royal Victoria Hospital with an appointment in surgical pathology.
From this point in Archibald’s career, Martin Entin begins his carefully researched, insightful and beautifully told biography of Edward Archibald. We learn that because of a diagnosis of tuberculosis less than a year after his appointment Archibald took the “rest cure” for 2 years in a sanatorium on Saranac Lake, NY. Unlike many others, Archibald recovered. In the process, he developed an interest in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis that would profoundly shape his future career.
Dr. Thomas Roddick appointed Archibald to the Royal Vic in 1904 as its third active surgeon. As the author takes us through Archibald’s career as a young surgeon, he digresses to explain the pathophysiology of tuberculosis and pancreatitis, the subjects of Archibald’s first research endeavours. Progress is slow through these pages, and Entin must have realized this because he tweaks the reader’s interest by describing the personalities of some of Archibald’s colleagues. John McCrae was one of them. McCrae was a bachelor who practised internal medicine and pathology. He rented the third floor of Archibald’s house and became “uncle” to Archibald’s 4 girls. In 1914, Archibald and McCrae worked together as medical officers in France. Here, Entin gives vivid descriptions of the battle conditions they faced and the casualties they treated. We learn that Archibald worried about McCrae’s mental health. The steady stream of dead and dying soldiers had changed his personality. He could not reconcile McCrae’s depression with the high ideals of sacrifice expressed in his poem In Flanders Fields, which McCrae wrote on a piece of wrapping paper during a lull in the fighting in 1915.
Before the end of the war, Archibald resumed his career at the Royal Vic. He was meticulous in recording and reporting clinical and research studies. He had already earned an international reputation. Although his practice increased, he never slackened the pace of his research. He was clearly the best candidate in 1923 to succeed Dr. Armstrong as chief of surgery. Hospital politics blocked his appointment. At this point, the reader will enjoy Entin’s exposure of hospital politics in the chapter he names “Sir Henry Gray Affair.” Considered a serious misadventure in 1923, the affair will surely bring a smile to readers in 2006.
Entin writes a full account of how Archibald, finally appointed chief in 1928, recruited Wilder Penfield to the Royal Vic. A year later, Archibald, although surprised at the magnitude of Penfield’s ambitions, supported his plan to create the Montreal Neurological Institute.
Norman Bethune applied to Archibald’s thoracic surgery program in 1928. He spent 4 years with Archibald as a student and colleague. Entin holds nothing back in this chapter. Bethune’s antics will be a shocking revelation to many readers, but, true to form, Archibald’s assessment of Bethune as a man and as a surgeon is dispassionate and unemotional yet precise.
Martin Entin’s sense of humour is evident throughout this book but sparkles when he describes some of Archibald’s foibles. For meetings, trains, lectures, scientific presentations and even family events, Archibald was always late. Nurses usually forgave him. However, on one of Archibald’s operating days, with the patient asleep, prepped and draped, Archibald was nowhere to be found. Finally reaching him, the operating room nurse politely asked if his patient was to have an operation today or just an anesthetic.
The book, I am sure, was a labour of love for Martin Entin, a past chief of plastic surgery at the Royal Vic. He knew before he died at age 91 that his biography had reached the final stages of publication. Canadian surgeons of all disciplines, and residents too, will find this book enjoyable and interesting. The magnitude and breadth of Archibald’s legacy will surprise many.
Footnotes
Competing interests: None declared.
Surgeons and residents who would like to write book reviews are welcome to contact the book review editor, Vivian McAlister, at vmcalist{at}uwo.ca