C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the 20th Century

by Louis R. Caplan

Overview

When Charles Miller Fisher was born in 1913 there was very little scientific knowledge about stroke. But thanks to him, our understanding of stroke and of other brain disorders are now well established in every neurology training program around the world.

C. Miller Fisher is his story: his life, his method of study and of research, and his contributions. This work, reinforced with unequalled access to the CMF archives overseen by the Fisher estate and told in his own words (italicized in the text) from his memoirs, will shed light on one of the most important clinicians in North America and the world. He devoted his career and the great majority of every waking day to the study of stroke, both in the pathology laboratory and in people. Fisher's discoveries and contributions and those of the individuals that he trained changed the knowledge basis of stroke and vascular disease for everyone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190603656
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Louis R. Caplan, MD
Professor of Neurology, Harvard University
Neurologist, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre

Table of Contents

C. Miller Fisher's Life: Timeline

Introduction

Part I. Early Years and University and Medical Training
1. Fisher's Early Years
2. Toronto University and Medical School and Internship in Detroit

Part II. War Experiences
3. World War II and Experience as a British Naval Officer
4. Prisoner of War, 1941-1944

Part III. Repatriation and Reintroduction to Medicine and Neurology in Montreal
5. Reintroduction to Medicine and Neurology in Montreal

Part IV. Neuropathology Fellowship and Experience as a Neurologist Specializing in Stroke
6. Pathology at Boston City Hospital
7. Montreal, 1950-1954

Part V. Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital: Fisher's Personal Characteristics, Methods, and Major Contributions
8. Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital: Fisher's Activities and Methods
9. Fisher's Collegiality, Personality Traits and Idiosyncrasies, and “Rules”
10. Neurological Examination of the Stuporous Patient, Lacunar Infarction, Intracerebral Hemmorrhage, and Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage
11. Carotid Artery and Cerebral Atherosclerosis, Transient Ischemic Attacks, Symptoms and Signs Correlated with Lesions at Various Brain Locations, Cervical and Cranial Arterial Dissections, andHydrocephalus and Gait Abnormalities
12. Atrial Fibrillation, Memory, Timing and Quantity of Behavior, Randomized Therapeutic Trials and Anticoagulation of Brain Ischemia Patients, and Headache and Migraine
13. Eye Signs, Syndromes, and Reviews and Opinions

Part VI. The Last Decades of Fisher's Life
14. Retirement and Beyond: Fisher's Last Decades

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Alain Touwaide, PhD (Ronin Institute)
Description: This book is fundamentally the biography of C. Miller Fisher (1913-2008), the physician-researcher who "invented" stroke. This biography goes way beyond the account of Fisher's own life, as it illustrates a way of successfully doing research.
Purpose: The objective of this book is simple: through the biography of the researcher who devoted his career to the study of stroke, reconstructing the history of stroke as a disease.
Audience: This is a book on a physician by a physician, probably for physicians and researchers. This biography of both a physician and a disease might be read in very different ways: as a biography (all the more because it is full of citations of texts by the personage object of the study), as an initiation to the method of scientific research; and also, as a starting point for new research on other, yet hypothetically similar, medical conditions. Depending on the approach, readers will evaluate the parts of the book differently, with the biography possibly being an introduction and the further development being the most substantial contribution or the opposite.
Features: Though explicitly divided into five parts, the book comprises, in effect, two parts: Fisher's biography, and his study of stroke. The biography leads readers from southern Ontario and Toronto to World War II, Prisoner of War, and the return to Canada and medicine, specifically neurology. At this point, the book shifts from Fisher to the biography of stroke. After three sections following phases of Fisher's career and a more personal presentation of him, the book enters the mere medical analysis of stroke as Fisher conducted it, going from symptom to symptom, deeper and deeper up to atrial fibrillation. At the end, therapy is also part of the analysis concluded by the early syndromes in a way that closes the circle.
Assessment: This is a book to be studied upon, except by specialists of stroke, as an investigation into one of the most important medical conditions of the 20th century. It can be used as a guide for the analysis of other pathologies as well. As such, it might be a source of inspiration for apprentice researchers, provided they already have all the knowledge that is necessary to fully master the technicalities of the subject of this book.

Doody's Review Service

"This is a book to be studied upon ... as an investigation into one of the most important medical conditions of the 20th century." — Alain Touwaide, PhD, The Huntington, Doody's Review Service

"This book is full of wit, interesting encounters, and a detailed history of prominent figures and discovery in medicine. The author does a good job at elucidating major life moments that built Fisher's character and set him on his path for his major discoveries that changed medicine forever. Fisher loved being a physician, he loved learning, and, most of all, he loved his patients. Reading C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the 20th Century is a humble reminder of the beauty of medicine, the scientific method, and the incredible discoveries that Fisher gave the scientific community." — Jonathan Pineda, MS, Tarek Y. El Ahmadieh, MD, Salah G. Aoun, MD, and Stephen Figueroa, MD, Neurosurgery

"In this scholarly biography, Caplan has not only chronicled Miller Fisher's life, but has also described his extraordinary contributions to neurology, especially to cerebrovascular disease. The extensive references and images all serve to illustrate the history of stroke medicine in the second half of the twentieth century, making it an interesting and inspiring read." — Dr Arpan K Banerjee, MBBS (LOND), FRCP, FRCR, FBIR, Hektoen International

"Seldom has a medical story been told so well, so credibly, and so accurately by someone who has been a partner and participant in the advances that he describes. It is a delight to read by anyone with a health sciences background, and a must for those in the field of stroke." — Vladimir Hachinski, World Neurology

"Learning from the past is important, mostly from imminent clinicians in small circuits of excellence, as well as adapting from new morphological, biochemical, pharmacological, and functional technological methods and their interaction with many other disciplines close to and surrounding neurology. It is the merit of this wonderful book written by a pioneer of stroke neurology, Louis Caplan, whom both undersigning authors have much to thank in their own time of scientific interaction." — Michael G. Hennerici, Mannheim/Heidelberg (Germany) and J. Bogousslavsky, Montreux (Switzerland), Cerebrovascular Diseases

"I will treasure this book. Stroke neurology under Fisher was something extraordinary, and Caplan reminds us how valuable it was. After closing this remarkable book, I realised that Fisher's transformative era, with its eagerness to see pathophysiology anew and its willingness to overturn assumptions while maintaining masterful attention to neurological detail, might perhaps now be distinctly and sadly no more-but hopefully not." — Eelco Wijdicks, The Lancet Neurology

From the Publisher