The "roaring twenties" were a colorful decade filled with jazz, the flappers, motion pictures, and radio. Herbert Hoover occupied the White House and the world helplessly watched the American stock market tumble; setting into motion a Great Depression. Violent mob wars and the St. Valentine's day massacre made names like Al Capone and Machine Gun McGurn commonplace in American households. Mies van der Rohe's international style of architecture became the modern contemporary look for American Society. The ANA meetings were mainly held in Atlantic City, NJ during the 1920's.
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Post-Vaccine Encephalitis
Bassoe and Grinker presented their work on rabies and rabies vaccine encephalitis in 1929 at the annual ANA meeting in Atlantic City, NJ. Pictured is their demonstration of normal substantia nigra (left) compared to that affected by epidemic encephalitis (right) which was often confused with rabies infection. Bassoe and Grinker showed that attenuated rabies disease was probably transmitted by the vaccine. |
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The 1920's represented a decade of discovery and innovation in neurology and the neurosciences. The myelogram, angiogram, electroencephalogram, and electromyogram were all introduced in a span of less than ten years. In 1929, acetylcholine was isolated and the data on the first human EEG was published.
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First Electroencephalograms
The publication of Hans Berger's On the Electroencephalogram of Man in 1929 changed neurophysiology forever. Pictured are one of the first human EEG's, Hans Berger's laboratory, and some of Hans Berger's original notes. |
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In the 1920's neurology was a division of internal medicine or psychiatry. Except at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Harvard and a select few other medical institutions, neurology struggled to establish and retain an identity. A singular advance came from a 1928 endowment from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Boston City Hospital. The endowment was specifically outlined to develop a full time teaching and education unit of medical neurology. This model was progressively adopted during the 1930's as more departments of neurology were established in the United States. Neurotherapeutics were emphasized in these early medical neurology units, though treatment outside University centers relied largely on hydrotherapy and various tonics.
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Neurotherapeutics and Hydrotherapy
(Top) An advertisement from American Medicine in 1929 claims that the halogen salts of magnesium treat neuromuscular disorders including Parkinson's disease. Pharmacotherapy remained empiric, a few specific neurological therapies were yet developed. (Bottom) Original work on Hyperpyrexia Produced by Baths from 1929 displaying the handwriting of a paretic patient before (left) and after (right) bath therapy. |
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As an early example of the emerging American sport's culture, the baseball hero, Ty Cobb was the subject of speculations on brain adaptation.
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Neurology in the Public Eye
Professor Kato in July 1929 proclaims in the New York Times (left) that the secret to Ty Cobb's success was a superior brain. The public was becoming fascinated with the brain. Pictured on the right is Ty Cobb in 1928, the last year of his brilliant career. Kato wrote: "It is not Ty Cobb's batting eye, or Bobby Jones' master touch, or Thurston's slight of hand, but the brain that makes the difference." |
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On the International level, the neurological world gathered in Paris in 1925 to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the founding father of clinical neurology, Jean-Martin Charcot. The meeting was organized by the French Neurological Society, but drew an international list of participants and speakers. Major topics of discussions included the disorders closely linked to Charcot himself including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, tabes doralis, multiple sclerosis, and clinical-anatomical correlations. Among the seminal North Americans of the decade, Harvey Cushing, published his Disorders of the Pituitary Gland in 1921.
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Harvey Cushing
Pictured in 1929 Harvey Cushing, the world's leading neurosurgeon enjoys a cigarette. His multiple publications on the pituitary gland in JAMA and other journals coupled with his 1926 text The Third Circulation made his contributions to neurology seminal. |
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