Digby Leigh

Digby Leigh was a pioneer of Canadian pediatric anesthesia. He was an outstanding man – once met, never forgotten. My only contact with him was at the First Paediatric Anaesthesia Workshop at HSC in Toronto organized by Alan Conn in 1964. He chaired a panel with Jackson Rees from Liverpool and Bob Cope, a gentlemanly senior anesthetist at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street in London. The introduction was followed by ‘We are all enemies,’ a sure start for a vigorous debate. Digby Leigh was born in Jersey, grew up in British Columbia where he attended the University of British Columbia. He moved to Montreal to attend McGill University because there was no medical school in Vancouver. He graduated in 1932 and, like many others, began surgical training at Montreal Children’s before Wesley Bourne, Chief of Anaesthesia, persuaded him to change to Anaesthesia. He went to Madison, Wisconsin, and trained with one of the great pioneer teachers, Ralph Waters, for 3 years.