Dr. J.C. Boileau Grant graduated from Edinburgh University in 1908. At the outbreak of war he volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in the Grenadier Guards and the Black Watch.

After demobilization in 1919 he accepted the invitation from the University of Manitoba to the Chair of Anatomy, which he occupied until 1930 when he went to Toronto as Professor of Anatomy. By then he had written his first textbook and had the first edition of the Atlas of Anatomy in progress, both of which brought him international recognition. The museum of anatomical specimens which he and his students had created in Toronto remains to this day a superb resource for the teaching of anatomy. He ended his academic career as Visiting Professor, UCLA, where the students voted him the Most Valuable Teacher award.

Impeccable scholarship, quirky humour and, behind the mask of old-fashioned politeness and reserve, a warm friendliness ensure Grant's immortality in the annals of Canadian medicine.

Clayton L.N. Robinson is a Fitzhenry and Whiteside author.

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