296 TOWER
There were nine people from the MNI to head up the various units.
Milton Shy (from Denver (via Montreal) was clinical director and head
of neurology. Maitland Baldwin (also from Denver (via Montreal) was
head of neurosurgery. Choh-luh Li was a microelectrode neurophysiolo
gist and neurosurgeon, originally from Canton and Shanghai in China.
John Van Buren rounded out the neurosurgeons with emphasis on
neuroanatomy. Cosimo Ajmone-Marsan was head of EEG and clinical
neurophysiology; he came originally from Torino (Turin), Italy, also via
Montreal. Two were originally from Poland: Igor Klatzo (in neuro
pathology) via the Vogt’s Institute at Freiburg-im-Breisgau and then
Montreal; and Anatole Dekaban (in pediatric neurology) from Poland
via Montreal. I was part of the group; I came in the summer of 1953 to
set up a clinical neurochemistry laboratory. In addition, Shirley Lewis
was an operating room nurse at Montreal and came to be Baldwin’s sur
gical nurse; later they married. Lastly was John Lord, from Maine and
Montreal, who was in private practice as a neurosurgeon but also a
consultant to the NINDB program.
These nine people represented the nucleus from which the program
grew. These were the people who made the “golden age” of the 1950s
golden. Programs were established in neuromuscular disorders, epilepsy,
and lots of different approaches to problems of spinal cord regenera
tion, voltage-clamp techniques, etc. Training was offered for those who
wanted to come and learn from the experts.
We had a dual personnel system at that point: partly Civil Service and
partly Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. The latter was a
uniformed service. It was a time when the physician’s draft was in effect.
If you were acceptable otherwise, you could come to the NIH, get a
commission in the Public Health Service, and join whatever program
you and the program leaders agreed upon to satisfy your draft obligation.
I was one of those. I left the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay (Philippines)
when they said: “You’re finished. Thank you and goodbye.” That was
in 1946. In 1953, while I was in Montreal, they said: “You owe us 18
months more service.” And I was obliged to come back, so research at
the NIH provided a means to satisfy this obligation.
But I think that that system was invaluable not only to the people
who were in the program but to the program as a whole. I do not think