- MacDonald Critchley
Macdonald Critchley
CBE (bornFebruary 2 ,1900 ; diedOctober 15 1997 ) was a British neurologist. He was former president of theWorld Federation of Neurology , and the author of over 200 published articles onneurology and 20 books, including "The Parietal Lobes" (1953), "Aphasiology", and biographies ofJames Parkinson and SirWilliam Gowers .Macdonald Critchley was educated in
Bristol and received his medical degree there. His professional life centred on "King's College Hospital" and "National Hospital", "Queen Square" "for the Paralysed and Epileptic",London . He was a Registrar in 1927, and he was appointed to the staff as a physician in the following year and later became Dean of the Institute at Queen Square. His influence spread throughout the neurological world by teaching and writings and he later became President of theWorld Federation of Neurology .During World War II he was a Consulting Neurologist in the
Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve based atHMS Drake . [http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RNVR_officersC.html]His contributions to knowledge depended not on technology, but on his power of observation and meticulous dissection of human sensibility and behaviour. The best known of his works were those on
aphasia and theparietal lobes . Headache was also one of his many interests. He started a "Headache Clinic" at "King's College Hospital" and was one of the founders of the "British Migraine Trust". He delivered a paper at the "First Migraine Symposium" in 1966 on "Migraine: from Cappadocia to Queen Square", combining his clinical interest with his love ofhistory . Critchley was a handsome and impressive figure, a superb speaker and a lifelong student of the human mind. His last book on the life and career ofHughlings Jackson , jointly with his wife Eileen, has been published posthumously.Associated eponyms
* "Adie-Critchley syndrome": A syndrome of
forced grasping and groping.
* " Klein-Levine- Critchley syndrome": A syndrome of hypersoomnia and hyperphagia
* "Levine-Critchley syndrome": Acanthocytosis Neuroacanthocytosis with neurologic disorders detailed by Edmund Critchley not Macdonald Critchley).Bibliography
* "The Parietal Lobes".
London , Edward Arnold, 1953
* "The enigma of Gertsmann's syndrome".Oxford , Brain, 1966
* "Music and the Brain: Studies in the Neurology of Music" (with R.A.Henson).London , Heinemann, 1977
* "John Hughlings Jackson, Father of English Neurology" (with Eileen A. Critchley).London , 1998
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