SEPTEMBER 17, 1998-vol30n4: Obituary

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 4 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1998

Louis Bakay, 81, retired professor, chair of neurosurgery

A memorial service was held Tuesday in the chapel at Forest Lawn for Louis Bakay, a brain surgeon, professor emeritus in the UB medical school and retired chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. Bakay died unexpectedly Sept. 10 in his Buffalo home.

A native of Hungary, Bakay received his medical training at the University of Budapest. He came to the United States in 1948 as a Harvard Research Fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he remained until 1961. He was appointed that year as professor and chair of neurosurgery in the UB medical school, where he served for 23 years.

Bakay focused his research on the blood-brain barrier and aspects of cerebral edema. He was the author of several books on those topics, as well as chapters in 14 surgical handbooks and more than 100 scientific papers. Several of his books were translated and published in Spanish, Russian and Japanese. After his retirement in 1984, Bakay wrote a memoir, "Gallery of Ghosts," followed by "Gastronomic Exotica."

He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1989 from the Massachusetts General Hospital, an honor given to only five graduates of the hospital's neurosurgical program who had made significant contributions to neurosurgery. Bakay was cited for his pioneering work on brain injuries. In 1997, the Louis Bakay Neuroscience Laboratory was dedicated at Buffalo General Hospital, and a fellowship in neurosurgery was established in his name.

Survivors include his wife, Nancy; a daughter, Stephanie of Boston; a son, Nicholas of Los Angeles, and a sister, Margitt de Balas-Piry of Budapest, Hungary.