Biology, medicine and society 1840–1940

Chicago began with James S. Jewell, the first President of the American Medical Association. Between the two world wars, medical neurology became somewhat beclouded by the sheer multitude of psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts. Neurosurgery, too, had established itself in a position of great authority through the work of Charles Frazier and Charles Elsberg, followed closely by Dandy and by Harvey Cushing. Immediately after World War II ended, medical neurology underwent a renaissance. This was largely due to the personal efforts of Abe Baker and Pearce Bailey jr. About the same time, there was an upgrading of the Veterans' Hospital Service with special neurological divisions; the establishment of the Federalsupported National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness as an organization for intraand extramural research; the formation of the Academy of Neurology, and its special journal Neurology, edited by Russell DeJong; and the institution of "Boards" which sifted the men from the boys, and hence endowed great professional prestige to those neurologists who proved their worth. The magnificent outcome of all these auspicious circumstances is seen today in the position occupied by America in the international neuroscientific scene. DeJong's book tells all this and much more. To those outsiders who have grown up as onlookers, the book is vastly appealing. If a reviewer were permitted to quibble, it would only be to wish that it had been longer, and that the constituent biographies went deeper so as to reveal in each case the human being within his professional carapace, struggling to express himself. May the second edition appear quite soon, and may it be bulkier. Macdonald Critchley National Hospital for Nervous Diseases London