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AN INTERPRETATION
of important trends in the checkered past of American neurology is not a simple task. The problem springs from the fact that a good history of neurology never has been written. We have biographies of eminent neurologists which do not give the story of their times; we have accounts of important neurological discoveries which do not reflect the philosophic trends leading to their creation; and we have jumbled histories of neurology so confused with the history of psychiatry that it is difficult to identify one from the other. American neurology needs a Voltaire to interpret the meaning of its saga.
It seems surprising that no comprehensive longitudinal account has been given of the specialty devoted to study of the most central and perhaps the master tissue of the body and personality. This is less surprising, however, when one realizes that American neurology never has attained an unchallenged professional autonomy as a medical specialty. Continually vacillating as a satellite between internal medicine and psychiatry, neurology has had only partial glimpses of true autonomy. In fact, a struggle for a position of independence in the medical hierarchy appears to be the dynamic theme underlying the real story of American neurology. Let us briefly trace this principle during the various historical periods of neurology in order to evaluate it in terms of the present status and the future of neurology.
THE EARLY PERIOD (1862–1880)
The years from 1862 to 1880 may be regarded as the cradling period of American neurology, which was born during the Civil War. Many general practitioners who served in the army medical departments emerged as practicing neurologists. Conspicuous among them was William A. Hammond (1828–1900), who was appointed Surgeon-General of the United States Army, and S. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914), who operated a hospital for nervous diseases in Philadelphia (1862). The team of Hammond …
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