Chapter 39 An historical overview of British neurology

Abstract

In the UK, neurology stemmed from general (internal) medicine rather than psychiatry. In 1886 the Neurological Society of London was founded, with Hughlings Jackson as its first President. After World War I, Kinnier Wilson was made Physician in Charge of the first independent department of neurology, which was at Westminster Hospital in London. Although before the 17th century there were British doctors who took an interest in diseases of the nervous system, e.g. Gilbertus Anglicus (c. 1230), who distinguished epilepsy from apoplexy, and Bartholomeus Anglicus, whose encyclopedia (c. 1260) provided the first picture of a dissection printed in English, John of Gaddesden (1280-1361) was the first in Britain to produce a manuscript on neurological disorders. Thomas Willis (1621-1675) was the founder of Neurology, being the first to use the term, and was also the leader of the first multidisciplinary team in neurological science, helping to shift attention from the chambers of the brain to the brain substance itself. He wrote seven books, all but the last in Latin, and his second one, Cerebri anatome (1664) was the first on the nervous system to include the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves, introducing such new terms as lentiform body, corpus striatum, optic thalamus, inferior olives and peduncles. Most of his neurology was in his fifth book, De anima brutorum (1672). Before Willis the brain was a mystery, but his work laid the foundations for neurological advances. After the 17th century of William Harvey and Thomas Sydenham and the 18th century of William Heberden and Robert Whytt there followed the 19th century of James Parkinson (1755-1824), John Cooke (1756-1838), Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842), Marshall Hall (1790-1856) and Bentley Todd (1809-1860). Besides its "Father," Hughlings Jackson, the giants who established the unique superiority of British neurology were Sir William Gowers, Sir David Ferrier, Kinnier Wilson, Sir Gordon Holmes and Sir Charles Sherrington.