The Brazilian Neurology centenary (1912-2012) and the common origin of the fields of Neurology and Psychiatry

Abstract

It is reported the Brazilian Neurology birth (1912), that has as the hallmark its first Neurology Cathedra of Rio de Janeiro, and the links between Neurology and Psychiatry, besides the main medical protagonists at that time in Rio de Janeiro: João Carlos Teixeira Brandão (1854-1921), first professor of the cathedra of Clinical Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases (1883-1921); Juliano Moreira (1873-1933), the founder of the Brazilian scientific Psychiatry and director of the Hospício Nacional de Alienados (National Hospice for the Insane) (1903-1930); Antônio Austregésilo Rodrigues de Lima (1876-1960), first professor of the cathedra of Neurology, considered the father of the Brazilian Neurology. Aloysio de Castro (1881-1959) was a great Brazilian neurosemiologist at that time. Austregésilo practiced both disciplines, Neurology and Psychiatry, and like Jean-Martin-Charcot, he was very interested in a typically psychiatric disorder, the hysteria. It is also considered in this paper the first Brazilian authors of Neurology and/or Psychiatric texts and the places where Neurology was initially developed by the main founders: Hospício Nacional de Alienados, Santa Casa de Misericórdia do Rio de Janeiro and Policlínica Geral do Rio de Janeiro.