The establishment of a neurosurgical department in Halifax in January 1948 marked the beginnings of the first dedicated neurosurgical service in Atlantic Canada. The development of neurosurgery in Halifax occurred in a receptive place and time. The Victoria General Hospital, the region’s largest tertiary care centre, and the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine were in a period of growth associated with medical specialization and departmentalization, changes inspired in part by the Flexner Report of 1910. Atlantic Canadians during this period were increasingly looking to specialists for their medical care. Although this social environment encouraged the establishment of surgical specialty services, the development of neurosurgery in Halifax, as in other parts of Canada, was closely associated with the efforts of individual neurosurgeons, such as William D. Stevenson. After training with Kenneth G. McKenzie in Toronto, Stevenson was recruited to Halifax and established the first neurosurgical department in Atlantic Canada. From the outset and over his twenty-six years as Department Head at the Victoria General Hospital and Dalhousie University, Stevenson worked to maintain the department’s commitment to clinical practice, medical education, and research. Although Stevenson single-handedly ran the service for several years after its inception, by the time of his retirement in 1974 the neurosurgery department had grown to include five attending staff surgeons who performed over two thousand procedures each year. This paper highlights the importance of Stevenson’s contributions to the development of neurosurgery in Atlantic Canada within the context of the social and medical environment of the region.

Herbert Henri Jasper dedicated his life to studies of the brain in relation to the mind and behavior. He pioneered the application of the electroencephalogram (EEG) for the study of the electrical activity of the brain and used this technique in studies of consciousness, learning and particularly the examination of epileptic discharge. He utilized microelectrode recordings from single brain cells and combined this technique with microchemical analyses to study cortical and sub-cortical activity. He added substantially to our understanding of brainstem and thalamic reticular formations in conditions of consciousness and in relation to petit-mal epilepsy. His work with Wilder Penfield and associates over a quarter century elucidated the mechanisms of epilepsy and added to our understanding of the functional anatomy of the human brain. An enthusiastic and able organizer, Herbert Jasper was responsible for many international conferences on brain science and worked tirelessly to develop international collaboration among investigators of the nervous system, being one of the founders of the International Brain Research Organization and the Society for Neuroscience. His prodigious contributions in basic and clinical research will be recognized by the world community of brain science for years to come.