ndersen er an - Gundersen Health System

William Hammond’s Contributions
To the Editor:
I
read the interesting article by Jeffrey Sartin on Civil
War medicine. 1 I would like to correct and augment the
information concerning Surgeon General William Hammond. In
particular, Hammond was instrumental in founding the American
Neurological Association (ANA), not the Annals of Neurology. 2-6
Hammond was a colorful and controversial character with
both considerable attributes and faults 3-5 : “a brilliant organizer
and administrator, an outstanding teacher and apostle of
neurology, a mediocre but prolific scholar, and an audacious,
contentious, boastful, and arrogant individual.” 3 Despite critics,
Hammond made important contributions to military hygiene,
the development of specialty hospitals and professional medical
societies, and neurology in general. As Surgeon General of the
Army during the Civil War, Hammond reformed the medical
service of the Union army, actively promoted hygienic principles
for soldiers, and established various specialty hospitals, including
the US Army Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System on
Turner’s Lane in Philadelphia, where Mitchell, Morehouse,
and Keen undertook their pioneering studies of nerve injuries. 3
After the war, Hammond was appointed Professor of Diseases
of the Mind and Nervous System at Bellevue Medical College,
developed a thriving clinical practice in New York, helped foster
the development of exclusive neurology specialty societies and
medical journals, wrote the first American textbook of neurology,
founded the New York State Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous
System (1873), and worked tirelessly to enhance public awareness
of neurology and neurological disease. 3,5
Hammond was the primary impetus behind the founding of
the ANA — the first national neurological association in the world
and the sole professional organization that was critical to the early
development of American neurology. 2-4,6 On December 14, 1874,
in a letter to selected colleagues across the country, Hammond
with 6 other founding members proposed the organization of the
ANA, which was ultimately founded in 1875 with an additional
29 charter members. Initial members were drawn primarily from
New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. At the first meeting
in New York City, lasting 2 days, the scientific presentations
included Hammond’s presentation of his original case of athetosis.
Hammond later served as president of the ANA in 1882.
From its inception, the ANA had a publication committee that
directed the publication of the transactions of the annual meeting
as a freestanding publication, the Transactions of the American
Neurological Association. 2,3 These Transactions, published annually
from 1875 to 1981, were meant to document the actual proceedings
of the annual meeting and provide a forum for publication of
articles in full format. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases,
which began in 1876 as a continuation of the Chicago Journal of
Nervous and Mental Diseases, was also affiliated with the ANA at
that time. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases continues
to the present, but was not associated with the ANA after 1918
because it had shifted its orientation to psychoanalysis. The Annals
of Neurology, which began in 1977 (ie, long after Hammond’s
death), is now the journal affiliated with the ANA (as well as the
Child Neurology Society). 3
Douglas J. Lanska, MD, MS, MSPH, FAAN
Staff Neurologist, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Tomah,
Wisconsin; Professor of Neurology, University of Wisconsin School
of Medicine and Public Health, Madison; Chair, History Section,
American Academy of Neurology, Minneapolis, Minnesota
REFERENCES
1. Sartin JS. Civil War medicine: the toll of bullets and bacteria. Gund Luth Med J.
2007;4(2):79-83.
2. Goetz CG, Chmura TA, Lanska D. Part 1: The history of 19th century neurology
and the American Neurological Association. Ann Neurol. 2003;53 Suppl
4:S2-S26.
3. Lanska DJ. Development of neurology as a specialty in the United States. In:
Lanska DJ, ed. AAN course 6PC.001: Historical Development of Neurology as a
Specialty. Minneapolis, MN: American Academy of Neurology; 2007.
4. Lanska DJ, Goetz CG, Chmura TA. Seminal figures in the history of movement
disorders: Huntington, Osler, and Hammond: part 11 of the MDS-sponsored
History of Movement Disorders Exhibit, Barcelona, Spain, June 2000. Mov
Disord. 2001;16:749-753.
5. Lanska DJ. William Hammond, the dynamometer, the dynamograph. Arch
Neurol. 2000;57:1649-1653.
6. Lanska DJ. Characteristics and lasting contributions of 19th-century American
neurologists. J Hist Neurosci. 2001;10:202-216.
Editor’s Note: Having discovered a mutual interest, Dr Lanska and
Dr Sartin collaborated on an article about Dr Hammond for this issue
of the Gundersen Lutheran Medical Journal, pages 21-28.
Gundersen Lutheran Medical Journal • Volume 5, Number 1, July 2008 3