152 AJMONE-MARSAN
It was not a structured, teaching institution, as its junior professional
staff–consisting of Ph.D.s or M.D.s–had at least completed their residency
and, very often, their fellowships. It was a center where basic research
was closely integrated with high-level clinical research. Patients were ad
mitted solely as referrals from practitioners around the country, being
accepted only if they met certain criteria, i.e., if they were affected by
ailments or diseases that happened to fit the field of research interest
of each principal investigator at any given time, at the specific institute,
or if their disease was included among the current “targets” of the main
institute research programs. Patients were offered–free of any charge–
the best and most up-to-date care available, but at admission they were
asked to sign a very complete informed consent form, outlining a battery
of tests, procedures, and treatments, including those that were still in the
experimental phase that they were expected to undergo in the course of
their hospital stay.
The scientific directors headed the basic research of the intramural
program. In the early years of the NINDB, the scientific directorship,
under Seymour S. Kety and then Robert B. Livingston, was shared with
the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). In 1960, when the
two institutes became completely independent, the intramural program
of NINDB was run by several such scientific directors including, up to
1979, G. Milton Shy, Karl Frank, Henry G. Wagner, and Thomas Chase.
Some of them were well-recognized authorities in their fields, leaving a
substantial mark on the institute’s output; some were also, or mainly,
reasonably good administrators.
Shy headed and managed the intramural NINDB clinical research
program. Shy and Maitland Baldwin were also selected as the respective
chiefs of the Medical Neurology and Surgical Neurology Branches. Both
of these investigators had obtained their basic scientific-neurological
formation at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI). Shy had addi
tional exposure to the British “cradle” of neurology thanks to a year’s
clerkship at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases at Queen
Square in London. His main interest and expertise was in muscles and
peripheral neurology. Baldwin’s main training and interest had always
been in the surgical treatment of seizure disorders. Both had spent a brief
period at the University of Colorado before their NIH recruitment.