Marcel Schreiber was born in Sydney in 1910 and graduated with first class honours from the University there in 1931. After serving in junior posts in Australia he came to England and took the conjoint diploma and the Fellowship in 1938. He returned immediately to Sydney and was appointed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children but soon left to join the AAMC, in which he served as a major. After the war he teamed up with T Y Nelson whose specialty was neurosurgery, which thereafter was to be Schreiber's main interest. In 1954 he spent a year of international travel to study the subject, and although his appointment was as a general paediatric surgeon, neurosurgery took up most of his time. When the Prince of Wales' Children's Hospital was established he was invited to join the staff as a neurosurgeon on a salaried basis. He published extensively on his specialty with papers on hydrocephalus, head injuries and spinal tumours. He was the first surgeon in Australia to draw attention to the dangerous but remediable condition of subdural haematoma in infants. On retirement he and his wife derived great pleasure from classical music, theatre and the arts. He died on 2 October 1994.