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The sculpture of the devil on a portal of the Lichtenthal Abbey School in Baden-Baden, Germany displays neurological pathology, possibly consistent with multiple cranial neuropathy. One of the main abnormalities is an exotropia strabismus, a feature rarely depicted in works of art portraying the devil., (© 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

In 1898, Russian physician Sergey Alexeevich Sukhanov (1867-1915) spent a 3-month traineeship in Professor Arthur Van Gehuchten's anatomy laboratory in Louvain (Belgium). A folder containing 17 handwritten documents in Russian was recently discovered in the archives of the Museum of the History of Medicine, First Moscow State Medical University. The letters give a lively account of Sukhanov's everyday observations, experiences and opinions while he was in Van Gehuchten's lab. We took a selection of these notes and put them into medical and historical context., (© 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Russian neurology was virtually nonexistent in the middle of the 19th century which made a traineeship abroad an absolute necessity. Charcot and his school did not just offer professional training, but created the best minds, which would determine the direction of neurology and psychiatry in Russia for many decades. After returning home, young Russian doctors not only implemented everything they had learned in Western Europe, but proceeded to make their own original contributions. The most talented pupils of Charcot, including such prominent names as Kozhevnikov, Korsakov, Minor, Bekhterev and Darkshevich, became the founders of neurological schools in Russia. They laid the basis for the further development of neurology and psychiatry. Remarkably, though trained by the same teachers, each of these future 'founding fathers' of these neurological and psychiatric schools followed his own individual path which resulted in an undeniable diversity in Russian neurology and psychiatry during the period of their formation., (Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.)