224 GILMAN
siology), and Richard Coggeshall (in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology).
Eugene Streicher (within the Laboratory of Psychology’s Section on Aging)
was there, along with Larry Embree (in the Laboratory of Neurochemistry)
and Detlev Ploog (in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology’s Section on
Limbic Integration and Behavior). Many years after my two years as a
Research Associate at the NIH, I became a member of the NINDS Ad
visory Council, and on my first day, Streicher came up to me and said,
“Sid, welcome home.” I had the good fortune to see Ploog at a meeting
in Tübingen some years later as well.
During the last two years of the 1950s, the NIH had not only interest
ing work in many laboratories that I learned about in seminars as well
as in casual conversations, but also an interesting clinical environ
ment. G. Milton Shy was the NINDB intramural clinical director and
chief of the Medical Neurology Branch at that time. Shy had grand
rounds on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and as I was occupied in the labora
tory on Tuesdays, I went to his extremely stimulating rounds on Satur
days. He was a challenging teacher, usually putting people on the spot
and grilling them, mostly about anatomy but often about clinical dis
orders as well. I remember many interesting Saturday afternoons, going
home, consulting anatomy books, and meeting the intellectual chal
lenges Shy had presented.
Cosimo Ajmone-Marsan headed the Electroencephalography Branch
and Maitland Baldwin and John Van Buren were neurosurgeons who
headed the Surgical Neurology Branch. Trainees in the Medical Neurol
ogy Branch included Donald Silberberg, Andrew Engel, W. King Engel,
and Guy McKhann.
In addition to the special courses offered to the Research Associates,
there were also lectures on the nervous system that Wally Nauta gave at
the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Frank gave a series of lectures in
basic electronics, and there were multiple guest lecturers and symposia
offered by the NINDB, the NIMH, and other NIH Institutes.
As it is completely transformed now, let me describe Bethesda in the
late 1950s. It was a small town with only one good restaurant, O’Donnell’s,
and nothing more than a few beer parlors. Most people would have to
go into Washington for a decent dinner. Because I was a member of