Reviewing this book has given me considerable pleasure and as one who knew little of the historical development of neurosurgery this has been a real voyage of discovery. I cannot help but admire the remarkable achievements of our predecessors which have led to the evolution of a surgical discipline the scope and effectiveness of which could never have been contemplated even 50 years ago.

The long history of surgery of the head and brain before the late 19th century is of some interest, but it was really the major advances made in bacteriology, cerebral localisation, and anaesthesia at the end of the last century which allowed the birth of neurosurgery. The early development of the specialty relied very heavily on cross fertilisation of ideas from doctors and physiologists working in different centres in Europe and the United States. The importance and sheer excitement of the early scientific meetings is well described. The …