Griffith, Harold Randall, 1894-1985

• Griffith, Harold R., 1894-1985

Harold Randall Griffith served in the No 6. Field Ambulance and was awarded the Military Medal for bravery at Vimy Ridge. He introduced the use of ethylene (1923) and cyclopropane (1933) into Canadian anaesthetic practice. In 1941 he established the first postoperative recovery room in Canada. He and Dr. Enid Johnson, in 1942, pioneered the use of curare as an anesthetic to produce muscle relaxation, important for improving operating conditions and decreasing mortality. He organized the Society of Canadian Anaesthetists in Montreal, which in 1943 would become the Canadian Anaesthetists' Society, and was the Society's first President. He joined the Anesthesia Department of the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University as a Lecturer in 1946. He was Chairman, 1950-1956 and Professor, 1954-1956. He published over seventy medical publications.