The first page of The Lancet Neurology portrayed the neurologist as “one of the few specialists who can diagnose a patient with just a hammer and a pin”.1 Well, not quite. In 1947, Merritt, Mettler, and Putnam2 listed the useful “tools of the trade” found in a neurologist's “basket or bag”: ophthalmoscope and otoscope, rubber percussion hammer, 128 cps tuning fork, steel pin through a tongue depressor, camel hair brush trimmed to 10–20 hairs, test odours (menthol, coffee, vanilla, peppermint), test taste vials (sugar, saccharin, salt, vinegar, quinine), Jaeger test types (or similar card), dynamometer, metal tubes for water temperature discrimination, and test objects for confrontation perimetry.