158 AJMONE-MARSAN
Mayo Clinic, and Tulane University in the early 1950s. At about the
same time the use of permanently implanted leads began at the Johns
Hopkins University with Walker and Curtis Marshall^12 and a few years
later at the Ste. Anne Hospital in Paris,^13 and eventually at numerous
other centers in the United States and abroad. The French investiga
tors, in particular, came to attribute such a crucial role to this invasive,
diagnostic method that they used it routinely in practically every epi
leptic patient who might be a surgical candidate. Many of the present
surgical epilepsy centers, such as those at Yale University, Toledo (Ohio),
Notre Dame Hospital (in Montreal), and Zurich University medical
school have been founded and/or are still directed by investigators who
were trained in Paris and who share a similar philosophy.
The activity of the Electroencephalography Branch (later renamed
the Clinical Neurosciences Branch) included both clinical and experi
mental aspects. The clinical aspect of the branch was subdivided into
service and research activity. It was the only branch on the NIH campus
suitable to provide EEG consultation services to all of the patients of
the various institutes located within the NIH Clinical Center. About
50 percent of the referrals originated outside the Surgical Neurology
Branch; they included research subjects from the NIMH, the National
Cancer Institute, the National Heart and Lung Institute (now National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute), the National Institute for Arthritis
and Metabolic Diseases (now National Institute of Diabetes and
Digestive and Kidney Diseases and National Institute of Arthritis and
Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases), and the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development. The branch’s research activity
included projects originating primarily in the branch itself, and those in
collaboration with the main project of surgical epilepsy treatment. The
branch, for its first 25 years, was under my continuous direction, the only
tenured professional. The other branch members, as indicated above,
consisted of Clinical or Research Associates (actually fellows and visiting
scientists) who would spend from two to four years at the institute, either
collaborating with the branch chief or carrying out independent research
under his supervision. The scientific caliber of many of these Research
Associates was exceptionally high, as attested by the standard of their pub
lications and, for many, their subsequent careers and current academic