Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard: double-hyphenated neurologist and forgotten father of endocrinology.
This year is the Centenary of the death of Brown-Séquard who, although remembered today only for his eponymous syndrome, was as well known in the Victorian medical world as Robert Maxwell was to newspaper readers in the past decade. His position in the history of endocrinology is paradoxical; a good case can be made for saying that he invented the doctrine of internal secretion. Yet, the excesses of the organotherapy movement he founded at the end of his life discredited endocrinology and probably delayed the discovery of insulin.
Department of Diabetes, University Hospital, Nottingham, UK.
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Tattersall
D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000266:history / Q000628:therapy; D004704:Endocrinology / Q000266:history*; D005602:France; D049672:History, 19th Century; D008436:Mauritius; D009462:Neurology / Q000266:history; D006113:United Kingdom