Harold Segall died just short of his 93rd birthday, the stereotype of North American Horatio Algeresque success. He arrived in Canada as a baby, one of a family of four driven out of Romania by rampant anti-Semitism. His father worked in a sweatshop to feed his family.

Segall’s early education was peppered with numerous jobs undertaken to assist the family’s financial woes. But he did well in school and, when the time came, found ready acceptance into McGill University. Admission into the medical school for a Jew at that time demanded genuine scholarship. He had that and, fortunately, the friendship and support of upperclassmen who, later, became leaders in their profession: Harry Goldblatt, Louis Gross, and Alton Goldbloom.

After graduation in 1920, Segall studied for a time with Maude Abbott, the accomplished pathologist. Then he worked in Boston, especially with famed heart specialist Dr. Paul Dudley White. This experience convinced him that his field should be diseases of the heart. Cardiology became his first love and his career for the next seven decades. After more specialization in London and Vienna, Segall returned to Montréal to practice. He was the first full trained cardiologist in the city.

He established a cardiac clinic at the Montréal General Hospital, taught medical students, and built up the clientele in his private practice. Because he had been raised in predominantly French-speaking areas of Montréal he spoke the language well. Ultimately his patients included anglophones and francophones, gentiles and Jews; by the 1930s he was the personal physician to the president of the Canadian National Railway.

Segall was a remarkably well-trained cardiologist, a product of the best teachers in Canada, the United States, and Europe. His mental preparation was thorough and was continued throughout his long life. But the physical aspect played its role also. In 1927 he obtained what may have been the first EKG machine in Canada. This portable equipment came in two wooden boxes, each weighing almost fifty pounds.

These Segall hauled up hundreds of flights of stairs to his patients all over Montréal. It was hard work, but he brought electrocardiography into the homes of his patients. Perhaps, also, this remarkable effort contributed to the length of his life. Among his many scientific contributions were studies of his own heart and circulatory system and those of his two children, studies pursued over many years.

Segall pioneered in many ways in cardiology. His commitment to the subject never faltered. His clinic at the Montréal General was one of the first in Canada. He participated in the founding of the Jewish General Hospital on Montréal and was head of cardiology there. He created a diagrammatic method for recording the normal and abnormal sounds heard on listening to the chests of patients. His teaching programs were innovative and early examples of the now common pursuit of Continuing Medical Education. But perhaps his most important contributions were at the organizational level. the Montréal Cardiac Society was created in 1946, largely through his efforts. A year later the Canadian Heart Association arose, again substantially because of Segall’s proselytizing work. He was the first secretary-treasurer and served as president in 1952-1954.

These organizations were professional ones, the membership made up of physicians. But it was seen quickly that another national group was needed to provide a base for patients and the general public to participate in education and fundraising. The National Heart Foundation of Canada was the result, with Segall heavily involved in planning. This organization is now known as the Canadian Heart Association, while the original professional society has become the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.

Not content with the heavy demands of practice and organizational work, Segall also became an adept amateur medical historian. His heroes included the great Canadian, Sir William Olser, as well as William Harvey (who discovered the circulation of the blood), Nikolai Korotkoff (who discovered our modern method for measuring blood pressure), and Rene Laennec (who discovered the stethoscope). He wrote much, and taught his students the importance of history in their lives and practices.

Lamentably, Segall was less fortunate in his personal life. His marriage began most happily, but Dolly Segall developed multiple sclerosis at a relatively early age. The last thirty years of her life were spent in increasing disability, much of that time in a nursing home. Segall visited daily and often telephoned several times a day, all those years. Both lives were affected profoundly.

Segall was fully active until his last moments. Just short of his 93rd birthday he attended a meeting in connection with a university in Israel. Returning home in a taxi he had a massive heart attack and died. He would probably have felt the fitting nature of his last illness.

He made no major medical discoveries, but his efforts to promote the importance of specialization in diseases of the heart, both in his chosen city of Montreal and across the country, mark him as an important pioneer. He died full of years and of honour.

Charles G. Roland