Main description:

Tracy Putnam and H. Houston Merritt co-discovered the effectiveness of Dilantin in controlling epilepsy, a dramatic find that is still invaluable today. Now, in this engaging volume, eminent neurologist Lewis P. Rowland, MD, tells the unique story of these two key figures and their outstanding contributions to science. Rowland reveals that Putnam was a brilliant and imaginative experimentalist, but he clashed with others-including powerful neurosurgeons-and ended
up dying in relative obscurity. Merritt was the practical one, an observer, fact-collector and recorder, a practitioner of what is now called "evidence-based medicine". From his early days Merritt was a popular and remarkable diagnostician, and went on to be one of the most influential neurologists
in the United States, a man who trained a generation of neurologists. As Dr. Rowland recounts this dual biography, he also sheds light on the origins of modern neurology, drug development, the growth of neuroscience and clinical investigation, academic anti-Semitism, the difficult struggle to translate basic science into clinical practice, the need for controls in therapeutic trials, and many other issues.

Contents:

1. Dilantin: Their Great Achievement ; 2. Putnam, a True Boston Brahmin. ; 3. Boston City Hospital: Cradle of Neurology. ; 4. Putnam Moves to New York City ; 5. Putnam at the New York Neurological Institute ; 6. The Jewish Question ; 7. Putnam Establishes Columbia Neuroscience ; 8. Dilantin and Psychiatry ; 9. Putnam Gets the Boot ; 10. H.H. Merritt, Canny North Carolinian at Harvard and Columbia ; 11. Merritt Moves to New York and Flourishes at Two Hospitals ; 12. Putnam in California ; 13. Merritt's Last Days