Children of the Brain is a unique piece of art created by The Neuro’s artist-in-residence in the 1950s. Also known as ‘Brain Babies’ the bas-relief, a brain model with convolutions represented as babies, was created by medical illustrator Hortense Douglas Cantlie, born in New York in 1901.
The story goes that Dr. Wilder Penfield received a 1929 Christmas/New Year's card of the brain babies from Dr. Ariens Kappers, director of the Brain Research Institute in Amsterdam. On Dr. Penfield's suggestion, Cantlie created a new drawing which was the used by Marjorie Winslow to create a bas-relief and was incorporated into the dedication plaque of the McConnell Wing at The Neuro (1953).
From 1924 to 1935 Cantlie worked as a medical illustrator, principally at the Montreal General Hospital. Copies of her illustrations were used in medical articles and books, including material published by Dr. Penfield. The most famous illustrations are somatic and motor homunculi.
