Heart surgeon Wants to Know What a Soul Is

Transmigration of the Soul from one body to another

In 1972, a distinguished panel met in Windsor, Ontario, and discussed “problems associated with attempts to define the exact moment of death.” Panel members included world-famous heart surgeon Dr. Wilfred G. Bigelow, Mr. Justice Edson L. Haines of the Ontario Supreme Court, and J. Francis Leddy, president of the University of Windsor. Dr. Bigelow upheld the existence of the soul and urged systematic research to determine what the soul is and where it comes from. Dr. Bigelow’s and other panelists’ comments were later published in the Montreal Gazette. When the article came to the attention of Śrīla Prabhupāda, he wrote a letter to Dr. Bigelow offering substantial Vedic knowledge of the science of the soul and suggested a practical method for scientifically understanding it. The Gazette article and Śrīla Prabhupāda’s response are as follows:

Gazette Headline: Heart surgeon Wants to Know What a Soul Is

WINDSOR—A world-famous Canadian heart surgeon says he believes the body has a soul which departs at death and theologians ought to try to find out more about it.

Dr. Wilfred G. Bigelow, head of the cardiovascular surgery unit at Toronto General Hospital, said that “as a person who believes there is a soul,” he thought the time had come “to take the mystery out of this and find out what it is.”

Bigelow was a member of a panel which appeared before the Essex County Medical-Legal Society to discuss problems associated with attempts to define the exact moment of death.

The question has become vital in the age of transplants of hearts and other organs in cases when the donors are