Neurology in the developing world

Abstract

NEUROLOGICAL PRACTICE: AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE By Noshir H. Wadia 2005. New Delhi: Elsevier Price £US75.00 ISBN 81-8147-549-6 On November 16, 1959, I landed in Bombay and met a small group of physicians who were to play a major role in developing neurology in India. Noshir Wadia and Anil Desai were neurologists, Darab Dastur a neuropathologist and Jimmy Sidhwa a neuroradiologist. That evening I met with Eddie Bharucha, the first neurologist in Bombay ( see Fig. 1), and his wife, Piloo, a pediatrician who promptly told me that the key to the serious problem of control of overpopulation was rural electrification. A few days later, in New Delhi, I also met Baldev Singh, who had trained in the USA; he was the first to practise and teach neurology in India and was one of the founders of the Neurological Society of India in 1951, along with the renowned neurosurgeons Jacob Chandy and B. Ramamurthi. Fig. 1 Eddie Bharucha. Each had received his neurological education in the United Kingdom except Dastur, who trained with Webb Haymaker at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington. Neurology in India, as in most of Latin America at the time, had long been dominated by neurosurgery. Noshir Wadia would soon become one of leaders in the field of tropical neurology and a legend in his own time ( see Fig. 2). After obtaining his medical degree from the Grant Medical College, named after Sir Robert Grant who was governor of Bombay in the early 19th century, and his neurological education at Maida Vale and the London Hospital under Sir Russell Brain ( see Fig. 3), he returned to found and head the department of neurology at Grant. He has received many honours, among which must be mentioned his Fellowship of both the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy …