Charles George Drake (Charlie), neurosurgeon, was born on 21 July 1920 in Windsor, Ontario. His father had died of Spanish influenza two months earlier. He was educated locally, but later moved to London, Ontario, receiving his medical education at the University of Western Ontario, from which he graduated in 1944. He did a rotating internship, shortened by the war to nine months, at Toronto General Hospital, where his last appointment was to the neurosurgical department under Kenneth McKenzie. The senior intern fell ill and Drake was left alone in the service. He was greatly influenced by McKenzie, a pioneer in, among other things, the removal of acoustic nerve tumours with a low mortality. McKenzie, in turn, was impressed by Drake and, finding he was interested in neurosurgery as a career, suggested that he come back to see him after the war. Under McKenzie's influence, Drake studied neuroanatomy at Western Hospital and also neurophysiology, the latter ultimately at Yale under John Fulton, with whom he worked on functional localisation in the anterior cerebellum. After two years of surgical training at the Victoria Hospital, London, Ontario, he returned to McKenzie at the Toronto General Hospital where, almost inadvertently, he operated on his first intracranial aneurysm, admitted under the care of E H Botterell, somewhat to the latter's displeasure. This incident ignited the interest of both McKenzie and Drake in the possibility of surgery for aneurysms, the patients of which were mainly at this time in Toronto cared for by physicians and treated with daily lumbar punctures. In 1950 McKenzie arranged for Drake to go to Europe, where he did a clerkship at the National Hospital, Queen Square, and spent time with Sir Hugh Cairns at Oxford, Olivecrona in Stockholm and Guiot in Paris. He took note of Olivecrona's preservation of the facial nerve in removal of acoustic nerve tumour and that the procedure was terminated by extensive coagulation of the inside of the porus acusticus. In all, his neurosurgical training occupied one and a half years, not enough to satisfy the American Board of Neurosurgery. McKenzie wanted him to continue at Toronto, but Drake was persuaded to return to London, Ontario, and set up a neurosurgical service. He had many offers from elsewhere for the rest of his career, but refused them. He was recognised from the beginning as an extremely skilled neurosurgeon and his early writings include an important paper on his results of removal of acoustic nerve tumours and repair of the facial nerve, but his great achievements were in the vascular field: intracranial aneurysms, especially those of the posterior cerebral circulation, of which he dealt with 1,700 cases, and arteriovenous malformation. His pre-eminence in the field brought him great renown, not only for the thoughtfulness and skill he brought to the management of these formidable lesions, but because of his honesty and self-criticism in presenting his experience. His work was completely trusted. His application to the problems presented by vascular lesions of this sort, in which he had the help of skilled radiologists and anaesthetists, resulted in the establishment of the subtemporal surgical approach to basilar bifurcation aneurysms, recognition of the value of magnification during surgery, study of the problems of cerebral arterial spasm in aneurysm surgery, and of the outcome in incomplete clipping of an aneurysm and, therefore, the value of post-operative angiography, the development of special aneurysm clips and assessment of the use and shortcomings of deep hypotensive anaesthesia. Regarded as the finest aneurysm surgeon in the world, Drake was also an excellent neurologist and had the foresight, with his friend Henry Barnett, to set up a joint department of clinical neurological sciences at London. He was much involved in the wider field of surgery and neurosurgery, being President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (from 1971 to 1973), the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (1977), the World Federation of Neurological Science Societies (1977 to 1981) and the American College of Surgeons in 1984. He was awarded the Order of Canada and, shortly before his death, was elevated to its highest rank. Drake and his wife Ruth, formerly a nurse, had four sons, one of whom is a paediatric surgeon in Toronto. He was interested in outdoor pursuits and nature, being keen on shooting and fishing and, in his later years, he became an enthusiastic golfer. He flew his own aeroplane. He died on 15 September 1998 of the effects of carcinoma of the lung.