At first glance, you might think it odd to see a story about the visionary media guru, Marshall McLuhan , in a space I normally devote to writing about science and medicine (its title was suggested by my witty wife, Jill, an accomplished writer). However, as I will explain, paying tribute to him in an online medical blog on the 100^th anniversary of his birth is entirely appropriate.

The idea to write about McLuhan came to me as I was reading this morning’s Winnipeg Free Press. In a story entitled, “Winnipeg virtually ignores Marshall McLuhan on centenary of his birth”, writer Nick Martin lamented that, although McLuhan spent his formative school and university years in Winnipeg, nobody in this town seems to have taken note of the man.

“Was the seed of ‘the medium is the message’ sowed in a classroom at Gladstone School during the First World War? Did Marshall McLuhan first ponder the concept of the global village because of an inspirational teacher at Earl Grey School or Kelvin High School?” Martin asked.

“Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers, a man who foresaw, and possibly propelled, a revolution in global communications and community….[He] may be a truly global figure, but Winnipeg has largely forgotten he's one of ours,” he commented.

Well Nick, I am one Winnipegger who hasn’t forgotten Marshall McLuhan for a variety of reasons, some of them personal, that readers may find interesting.

To understand my interest in the man, I must take you back to 1961, my freshman year at the University of Windsor (known at that time as Assumption University).

Although a science major, I took “Psychology 10”, a compulsory course for all first year students. My professor was a fabulous Basilian priest, John Alphonse Malone (to my utter astonishment, it turned out that my mother had grown up with “Phonse” Malone in Toronto… I subsequently reunited them… but that’s another story!).

I could tell that Malone’s reference to Dr. McLuhan especially pleased a very pretty young student in the lecture hall whom I had recently met. “He’s my father,” a beaming Mary McLuhan replied when I asked her after class. Wow!! I was impressed.

Three years later, Mary’s dad really hit the big time with another book, Understanding Media. As described in Wikipedia, “McLuhan proposed that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study—popularly quoted as ‘the medium is the message’. McLuhan's insight was that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.”

Does Facebook and Twitter come to mind?

The summer we graduated, I visited Mary at her parent’s lovely old Toronto home on a street overlooking Casa Loma. Her mother, Corinne, a Texas beauty who had given up acting for marriage, family and a move north, made us lunch in the kitchen. “Maashall’s goin’ to be in Ta-a-m magazine ,” she said in her Texas twang while setting down my cup of coffee on the table.

“Dad’s in the living room. Would you like to meet him?” Mary asked when lunch was over. Of course I would.

Marshall McLuhan, pencil in hand, sat on the living room sofa, his eyes looking down at the floor. Scattered on the rug in front of him were dozens of term papers he was marking. “Dad, this is Lorne Brandes, one of my classmates from Windsor,” Mary announced. A hand was offered. I shook it. His eyes remained on the papers. Nothing more was said. We left the room. “What was the message?” I quipped to Mary in the hallway.

Fast forward to today, July 21, 2011, the centenary of Marshall McLuhan’s birth (sadly, he died at the age of 69, several months after a stroke that left him unable to talk, and that may have been brought on by an operation some years earlier to remove a benign brain tumour). Could anyone have predicted that his vision of a media-driven global village, with its profound effect on societal behaviour, would prove so accurate?

To best illustrate the point, one need look no further than the Facebook phenomenon, where the international community of patients with multiple sclerosis rose up and refused to take “no” for an answer when it came to testing Dr. Paolo Zamboni’s CCSVI theory. Did the medium have a profound effect on their message? Absolutely.

I, too, owe a debt of gratitude to Marshall McLuhan (as well as to CTV) for the privilege of sharing my medical “messages” with readers across the influential medium known as the internet. That is why I salute “ Canada’s Intellectual Comet ”, on this, his 100^th birthday.