A native of Montreal, Edward Achibald received his M.D., C.M. from McGill University in 1896. After post-graduate work in France, Germany and England, he joined the staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1904 as Assistant Surgeon. He was Major in the Canadian Army Medical Corps during World War I and it was at the McGill General Hospital in Boulogne that he developed new techniques in the treatment of war wounds especially those to the lungs. In 1923 Archibald became a Senior Professor of Surgery at McGill University, and in 1939 was named Surgeon-in-Chief of the Royal Victoria Hospital. In the Second World War he served as a consulting surgeon to the Directorate of Medical Services in Ottawa, and at the time of his death was working on a book about war wounds.