EDITORIAL

摘要

Dr Macdonald Critchley (1900–97) was a meticulous observer ofnpeople with neurological disease. He elicited tendon reflexes withna hammer inscribed to him ‘with admiration ... Mayo Clinicnneurology ... March 1968’. The Babinski response was examinednusing a gold cornuto purchased by Mrs Eileen Critchley in Italy, DrnCritchley having earlier preferred a bird’s feather—one previouslynbelonging to a flamingo from San Diego zoo, another discarded byna pigeon and picked up in the garden at Queen Square by SisternMagnu ´ sson of Chandler ward. He opened his letters with a silvernpaper-knife given to him by Sir Francis Walshe, subsequently innthe possession of Ian McDonald, and engraved with the name ofneach owner. He had in his possession a human skull once ownednby Dr Franz Gall, given to Critchley on a visit to the Brain Institutenin Vienna, on which Gall had painted many phrenological images.nHe had been given the proofs of the 3rd edition of Sir WilliamnGowers’s A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System, of whichnonly pages 107–394 survive. He kept on his desk photographs ofnSir Francis Walshe (by Camera Portraits of Mayfair and New York)nand of the portrait of Sir Gordon Holmes by Harold Knight, and anpainting by Dr Raymond Garcin inscribed ‘a mon ami MacdonaldnCritchley ... affectieux hommage 1957’.