Epilogue

Abstract

Foerster, like Nonne, always argued for the special position of neurology as a separate academic branch of medicine. He proclaimed this special position before the entire world, drafting for the First International Neurology Congress in Bern in 1931 a resolution addressed to the governments of the world. Since then many countries, especially the United States and in recent years both parts of Germany, have recognized this appeal. FOERSTER would have been happy had he lived to see the Foundation of so many chairs of neurology in Germany’s Universities and Medical Academies. His efforts for neurology have played a decisive part in the past 25 years in the development of international neurology. His work is not forgotten and one may rightly say, that his contributions continue to influence the discipline, though it is especially regrettable that his methodology has found so little following and appreciation in German neurology, neurosurgery, and neurophysiology. We find scarcely any papers in the German Neurological Archives on the doctrine of localization. In similar fashion one sees in the English speaking literature the diminishing impact of Fulton’s work. May this contact with Foerster’s contribution redirect German efforts toward a consideration of functional localization.