"The art is long and the life short": the letters of Wilder Penfield and Harvey Gushing

Wilder Penfield and Harvey Gushing created legacies to neurosurgery, both i n terms of those they trained and in their philosophical approach to the fi eld. Their biographies provide only brief comments on their relationship wi thout any thorough examination of their personal correspondence. In this ar ticle the Penfield-Cushing relationship is examined through an analysis of their unpublished personal letters. The Penfield-Cushing correspondence is a treasure for neurosurgery; it provides remarkable insight into the embryo nic period of the discipline and into the relationship of two of the most i nfluential figures in modem neurosurgery.