CARTA AL EDITOR  
De Neurosurgery, por el Subdirector de NEUROEJE
Dr. T. Evans B.


Neurosurgery, May 2003, Volume 52, Number 5 Page 1239

Correspondence The Department of Neurosurgery at Seoul National University: Past, Present, and Future
 

Hyoung Woo Park; In Seok Yeo; Joong Uhn Choi; Hyun Jib Kim; Hye Roung Park; Juha Hemesniemi; Steven L. Giannotta; Teodoro Evans; John J. Kepes; Julius M. Goodman; J. Peter Gruen; Michael Y Wang; Gianluigi Zona; Vincenzo Testa; Pier Filippo Sbaffi; Renato Spaziante
 

The Early History of Neurosurgery in Brazil
Letter:
 

To the Editor:

    In a recent article by Gusmao and de Souza (3), the legend to Figure 1 describes the individuals in the photograph shown as "Portuguese surgeon António Egas Moniz (front row, second from left) photographed in Sáo Paulo with Brazilian surgeons" (3), p 1337). Egas Moniz (18741955), who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949, was not a surgeon; he was a neurologist. He studied neurology first in Bordeaux with Pitres and later in Paris with severas prominent French neurologists Fulgence Raymond, Pierre Maria, and Joseph J. Déjerine at La Salpétriére and Joseph Babinski at La Pitié (2, 4). Because Egas Moniz had had gout since the age of 23 years, which caused great deformity of his hands, all of the actions requiring manual skillfor example, in obtaining angiographic studies or the later leukotomy studieswere performed by his assistants, the most noted of whom was his colleague Lima (1). Egas Moniz was a neurologist, whereas Lima was a neurosurgeon (1, 2, 4, 5). Egas Moniz was one of the most distinguished neurologists of the 20th century (6).
 

Teodoro Evans

1. Antunes JL: Pedro Almeida Lima. Surg Neurol. 11:405406, 1979.

2. Feldman RP, Goodrich JT: Psychosurgery:. Neurosurgery. 48:647659, 2001. Abstract Full-text

3. Gusmao SS, de Souza JG: The carly history of neurosurgery in Brazil. Neurosurgery. 50:13361341, 2002. Abstract Fulltext

4. Ligon BL: The mystery of angiography and the "unawarded" Nobel Prize:. Neurosurgery. 43:602611, 1998. Abstract Full-text

5. Lima A: Egas Moniz 18 74195 5. Surg Neurol. 1:247248, 1973.

6. Pool JL: The development of modem intraeranial aneurysm surgery. Neurosurgery. 1:233237, 1977. Abstract