Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior

160 AJMONE-MARSAN

Three members of the earliest group of Clinical Associates, NIH campus, 1955: Charles E. Wells

(a), K. Magee (b), and Bruce L. Ralston (c), together with the first clinical director of the NINDB,

G. Milton Shy (f) and the first two visiting professors: neuropsychologist D. O. Hebb (d) from

McGill University and neuropathologist J. G. Greenfield (e) from Queen Square Hospital

Donated to the Office of NIH History by Dr. Cosimo Ajmone-Marsan

Associates and who was spending an elective year in the branch (see photos

on pages 156 and 160), and then with Kristof Abraham, a bright neu­

rologist who had just escaped from the 1956 uprising in Hungary (see

photos on pages 161 and 162). This endeavor together with similar spor­

adic studies carried out in Marseilles at about the same period can be

considered the precursors of the so-called epilepsy intensive monitoring.

Lacking the personnel and equipment for a continuous, 24-hour or

longer monitoring of a spontaneous epileptic attack, most ictal episodes

were initially induced by slow pentylenetetrazol (Metrazol) intravenous

injections. This method had become quite popular at that time (beginning

around 1949) to induce seizures and/or activate the resting EEG. The

technique described by Jasper and Guy Courtois in 1953 was especially

popular.^14 The method had obvious advantages but also unquestionable