Robert Janes was born the son of a farmer at Watford, Ontario on 6 September 1894, and never lost his love of the land and the beauties of nature. Shortly after graduating in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1916, he joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps and served in England and France t

Hugh Reid was born, one of twins, in Bebington, Cheshire, on 19 January 1893, the son of a forwarding agent. The family soon moved to Lancashire and Hugh went to Merchant Taylor's School, Crosby. His studies at the Liverpool Medical School were interrupted by the first world war and he served as a S

C S Patel was born on 13 October 1905 at rural Palana, went to school there, and afterwards at Baroda and Poona. His medical education was at the Grant Medical College and the JJ group of hospitals in Bombay. He had a brilliant career as a student obtaining 13 prizes, medals and scholarships; he qua

Libero Fatti was born on 13 January 1901 in Johannesburg of Italian parents, Luigi and Eliza Fatti, pioneers who had come from Sansepolcro, a small town in Tuscany, in 1896. He was educated until 1915 at the German school in Johannesburg and then at St John's College. After matriculating he started

Emerich Polak received his medical training in Prague and qualified in 1925. He continued his surgical training under Professor Rudolf Jedlicka and his first contact with English surgery was in 1926 when the Moynihan Travelling Club visited Prague. For forty years he directed an important surgical d

George Alexander Mason was born in 1901 and graduated from Newcastle-upon-Tyne University in 1922 and spent the whole of his professional life in that city. Although in every sense a general surgeon he soon became interested in thoracic surgery and devoted most of his surgical career to that special

Thomas Ackland was a general surgeon in Melbourne who introduced mammography into Australia. He was born in Melbourne on 8 September 1908, the son of William Ackland, an engineer, and Blanche Glana née Rye, the daughter of a veterinary surgeon. He was educated at Spring Road State School and then wo

Norman Shenstone was born at Brantford, Ontario, on 18 April 1881, the second son and second child of Joseph Newton Shenstone, a manufacturer of farm machinery, and Eliza Hara, his wife. His primary education was in local schools of Brantford and Toronto, to which his family moved during his early b

Franz Konrad Saddler Hirschfeld was born on 26 April 1904 in Brisbane, son of Dr Eugen Hirschfeld, a graduate of Strasbourg University, who emigrated to Australia in 1890, to become the first honorary bacteriologist to the Royal Brisbane Hospital and later honorary physician. Konrad was educated at

Carl Semb was educated at the University of Oslo, graduating as a Doctor of Medicine. Early in his surgical career he decided to specialize in thoracic surgery, and at the Vardhasen Sanatorium established a celebrated service for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, his outstanding contribution

Paul Santy, Professor of Clinical Surgery 1941-58 in the University of Lyon, Surgeon to the Edward Herriot Hospital 1933-58, and Director of the Lyon Anti-Cancer Centre, was a superb technical surgeon and an adventurous experimentalist of indefatigable curiosity, ever seeking advances for surgery th

John Stephen MacMahon was born at Cootamundra, New South Wales. His father was a solicitor practising there, but he also had a country property where the animals, the horses especially, fascinated the boy. He was educated at St Patrick's College, Goulburn, and from the very outset had an outstanding