Neurosurgeons of the Past

Neurosurgery did not emerge, Athena-like, from the head of its parent Surgery, complete with armamentarium. It arose rather by a stepwise and lengthy period of development dealing primarily with injuries to the skull during warfare and in other settings and was the province of the all-around physiciansurgeon of ancient Greece and Rome. The great step from involvement with the skull to operations on its contents is described by Louis Bakay, professor and head of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Buffalo branch of the State University of New York. The son of the founder of neurosurgery in Hungary, Bakay was trained in surgery before leaving Hungary at the time of World War II to take neurosurgical training in Swedish and Bostonian medical centers. He has written other books, including one on the early history of craniotomy and another on the treatment of head wounds in the Thirty Years' War. Unlike