Neurology Historical, Recent and Future Aspects

Acta Clin Croat, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2003 3 NEUROLOGY – HISTORICAL, RECENT AND FUTURE ASPECTS Franz Gerstenbrand, Bettina Matulla and Heinrich Binder Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Restorative Neurology, Otto Wagner Hospital, Vienna, Austria Introduction “Panta rhei – everything flows”, Heraklid’s profound insight, is considered the fundamental principle of research in the natural sciences. Each research initiative should be based on future orientation as well as on the knowledge of continually developing progress. The term ‘progress’, often used in modern-day industrial society and often misused, is also an essential motivating economic force. The incidence of neurologic disorders can be traced back thousands of years. Using modern methods of molecular biology and of imaging, somatic and neurologic disorders of early man can now be studied. Thus, ‘paleoneurology’ has recently emerged as a new field in which neurologists and archeologists collaborate extensively. As neurologic diseases have had great impact on the world history, ‘historical neurology’, i.e. analysis of written documents of contemporaries, personal data, bibliographies, paintings and sculptures of the past, has also become a new exciting field of inquiry in neurology. It obviously bears no relationship to the ‘history of neurology’. Paleoneurology The examination of the remains of the Tyrolean Iceman (Fig. 1) serves as a good example for paleoneurology. This body was carefully examined using modern imaging methods, supported by radiological techniques and molecular biology studies of biopsy material1-3. It was found that, although the man had died in his thirties, he had suffered from a number of illnesses. Coxarthrosis as well as degeneration of the cervical and lumbar spine were pronounced. Stenosis in the lower cervical spine, caused by degeneration of intervertebral disks was detected by spinal CT. It seems possible that the iceman, a hunter and gatherer, suffered from cervical myelopathy. Atherosclerotic plaques in the left internal carotid artery Acta Clin Croat 2003; 42:3-10 Leading ar icle