Obituary of Arthur James Hudson
Physician, professor, neuroscientist, and author Arthur J. Hudson passed away in his sleep on Sunday, September 8, 2013 on the neurology floor of University Hospital, London, Ontario, where he had practised and taught since 1969. His wife Jean, his children Nicholas (Pamela), Nancy (deceased), Robert, and Anna (Mete), and grandchildren Alexander, Michael, Daniel, Anatole and Aral profoundly mourn his passing, along with his sister Beverley and brother-in-law Drew. Born in 1924 in Toronto, he served as a navigator in the Royal Air Force Transport Command from 1943 to 1945. He earned his M.D. from the University of Toronto in 1950, and having trained under the renowned neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield and Dr. Herbert Jasper at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and at the Montreal General Hospital Research Institute with the biochemist J.H. Quastel, in addition to a clerkship in Neurology and Neuropathology at the National Hospital, Queen’s Square, London U.K. (where he met Jean), he came as a neurologist to the University of Western Ontario in 1958. Along with his medical practice at St. Joseph’s, Victoria and University Hospitals, he was a dedicated researcher in the field of motor-neuron diseases. In 1977, he became a founder of the ALS Society of Canada, and in the same year established the first ALS clinic in Canada and only the second in the world. His achievements led to the creation of the Arthur J. Hudson Chair in ALS Research at the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Hudson was director of Medical Research at University Hospital from 1988 to 1996, a member of the Senate of the University of Western Ontario from 1980 to 1982, and of the Board of Governors from 1990 to 1994. In recognition of this outstanding career of research and public service, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Honorary Medal in 2012. He was a man of wide-ranging intellectual interests that continued after his retirement. In addition to his distinguished record of academic articles, he published an edited volume of essays on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Concepts in Pathogenesis and Etiology (1990), and two monographs: The Physiological Basis and Quantum Versions of Memory and Consciousness (2006) and The Evolution of the Eye from Algae and Jellyfish to Humans (2010). Only a day before his passing, he was still conversing about his most recent ideas on creativity (and writing poetry) and the nature of human consciousness in relation to artificial intelligence. He is being interred privately. The memorial service will be conducted at First-St. Andrew’s United Church, 350 Queens Avenue, London, Ontario on Saturday, September 21, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations are invited to the ALS Society of Canada (at the link below) or 3000 Steeles Avenue East, Suite 200, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T9 1-800-267-4ALS (4257).
