Clinical problems of motor system disease.

This prologue to a symposium of research studies on motor mechanisms is a general commentary by a clinical neurologist. The vast extent and intricacy of modern basic neurological scientific knowledge presents a rather bewildering challenge to reasonable clinical application. In some degree this is being handled by complex and diverse neurological subspecialization. It is recalled that many past advances in the knowledge of neurological disease were achieved by a series of alternating and supporting bedside and laboratory observations and studies.