As the first neurological hospital in the world, founded in 1859, the National Hospital, Queen Square, and its affiliated Institute of Neurology remain leading neurological centres providing exceptional clinical services, teaching and research. Illustrated by over 100 historical images and much unpublished archival material, this book provides a comprehensive history of the National Hospital, the Institute, and their staff. It relates the ups and downs of the Hospital and Institute in war and peacetime, their financial struggles, many personality conflicts, efforts to remain independent and to maintain neurological dominance, academic and clinical contributions, issues relating to specialisation and subspecialisation and relations between disciplines, and the changing roles of the Hospital and Institute. The history is told from varying perspectives against the backdrop of the evolution of British clinical neuroscience, the special position of London medicine, and the influence of world wars, and is set in the context of modern British social history.

This book celebrates the quatercentenary of the birth of Thomas Willis on 27 January 1621. As a physician in Oxford, Willis's work in the 1650s provides an example of rural medical practice in early modern England. As a member of the Oxford Philosophical Club that met from the 1640s, he was central to the move from classical scholasticism to accounts of anatomy and physiology based on observation and experiment. As Sedleian professor of natural philosophy in Oxford, the surviving records of his lectures from the 1660s provide an example of pedagogy in medicine at that time. And, after moving to London in 1667, Willis continued to interact with a community of scientists and physicians who transformed ideas on respiration, muscular movement and the nervous system. Despite a busy clinical practice, Willis found time to write extensively on anatomy and physiology, clinical medicine and therapeutics. These contributions are recognized as wise, original and influential. Between 1659 and 1675, Willis published fourteen treatises. These appeared in six published works, one in two parts, written in Latin. Four of the titles contain engraved plates depicting the brain, muscle, lungs and stomach. The illustrators were Christopher Wren, Richard Lower, Edmund King and possibly Willis himself. Soon after his death, the treatises were published as collected works, also in Latin. Starting in 1679, his writings were translated into English and published as Dr Willis's practice of physic, eventually completed in 1684. The eighteen chapters of this bio-bibliography are in four sections: chapter 1 is biographical; chapters 2 - 4 describe aspects of the history of the book and illustration relevant to Willis's printed works; chapters 5 - 14 provide bibliographical details of Willis's treatises contained in 102 copies printed in Latin, English, Dutch and French between 1659 and 1721; and chapters 15 - 18 summarise the content of Willis's works and their contribution to medical science.

As the first neurological hospital in the world, founded in 1859, the National Hospital, Queen Square, and its affiliated Institute of Neurology remain leading neurological centres providing exceptional clinical services, teaching and research. Illustrated by over 100 historical images and much unpublished archival material, this book provides a comprehensive history of the National Hospital, the Institute, and their staff. It relates the ups and downs of the Hospital and Institute in war and peacetime, their financial struggles, many personality conflicts, efforts to remain independent and to maintain neurological dominance, academic and clinical contributions, issues relating to specialisation and subspecialisation and relations between disciplines, and the changing roles of the Hospital and Institute. The history is told from varying perspectives against the backdrop of the evolution of British clinical neuroscience, the special position of London medicine, and the influence of world wars, and is set in the context of modern British social history.

The Royal College of Physicians celebrates its 500th anniversary in 2018, and to observe this landmark is publishing this series of ten books. Each of the books focuses on fifty themed elements that have contributed to making the RCP what it is today, together adding up to 500 reflections on 500 years. Some of the people, ideas, objects and manuscripts featured are directly connected to the College, while others have had an influence that can still be felt in its work. This, the ninth book in the series looks at the libraries and archive of the Royal College.