Murray Falconer helped establish epilepsy surgery as a serious clinical discipline in Britain and made the pathological study of resected temporal-lobe tissue central to understanding drug-resistant epilepsy.
From New Zealand to London
Falconer was born in New Zealand in 1910 and trained in Britain. In 1949 he became consultant neurosurgeon to Guy’s Hospital and the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley hospitals. After visiting Wilder Penfield in Montreal, he established a neurosurgical department at the Maudsley in 1950.
A different surgical strategy
Falconer and neuropathologist Alfred Meyer developed en bloc temporal-lobe resection, preserving tissue for systematic pathological study rather than removing it in fragments.
Mesial temporal sclerosis
The Maudsley programme helped establish hippocampal or mesial temporal sclerosis as a frequent pathological finding in temporal-lobe epilepsy by correlating history, EEG, surgery and tissue pathology.
Surgery as a source of discovery
In 1971 David Taylor, Falconer, Clive Bruton and J. A. N. Corsellis described a distinctive microscopic cortical abnormality in surgical specimens. It became known as focal cortical dysplasia or Taylor’s dysplasia.
A lasting British contribution
Falconer’s work linked surgery, neuropathology and epileptology. The legacy continues in temporal-lobe surgery, pathological classification and the multidisciplinary assessment of drug-resistant focal epilepsy.
Related reading
Sources and further reading
- The start and development of epilepsy surgery in Europe
- Falconer & Taylor 1968
- Taylor’s focal cortical dysplasia revisited
Evidence checked: September 2026.