Avi Ohry
Tel Aviv, Israel

The life of William Alwyn Lishman (1931–2021) was dedicated to neuropsychiatry.^1-2 His classic textbook, Organic Psychiatry (1978), is a foundational book for neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and physiatrists. Lishman was the first UK professor of neuropsychiatry whose “abiding message was that neuropsychiatry was not a subspecialty but the whole of psychiatry—biopsychosocial—with the added perspective of brain functioning.”¹

There were others who paved the way in this specialty: Sir Alexander Morison (1779–1866); John Hughlings Jackson (1835–1911) and his friends Sir David Ferrier (1843–1928) and Sir James Crichton-Browne (1840–1938); Walter Symington Maclay (1901–1964) and Eric Guttmann (1896–1948) at Maudsley Hospital in London; Jean Jacque Lhermitte (1959–1877) in France, and others.⁴

Lishman published widely on dementia, alcoholism, head injury, epilepsy, neuropsychology, and neuropsychiatry. One article stands out as different from his usual interests: the diagnosis and conservative treatment of brachial neuropathies, which was written with his mentor, W. Ritchie-Russell.⁵ Sir Ludwig Guttmann (1899–1980), my own mentor, often told me about his early research on peripheral nerves. He and his family, who were Jewish-German refugees, were permitted to stay in the UK. Ludwig Guttmann first worked at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1939 was offered a research post at the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery (The Radcliffe Infirmary) under Professor Sir Hugh William Bell Cairns, KBE FRCS (1896–1952).⁶ He also worked on nerve regeneration in the department of zoology and comparative anatomy with JZ Young and Peter Medawar,⁶ who later received the Nobel Prize.⁷ Ludwig Guttmann published a few articles on peripheral nerve research together with Eric Gutmann,^8-10 but it seems that their interest in this topic was temporary.

References

1. David  A. “W. Alwyn Lishman (obituary).” The Lancet 2021; 397(10286):1704.
2. Lishman WA. “Psychiatric disability after head injury: the significance of
3. brain damage.” Proc R Soc Med 1966;59(3):261-6.
4. Lishman WA. “What is neuropsychiatry?” J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1992;55(11):983-5.
5. Ohry A. “The Department of Neuro-psychiatry. “Harefuah, 2018;157: 464-6. (Hebrew).
6. Lishman WA, Russell WR. “The brachial neuropathies.” The Lancet, 1961;  2(7209):941-7.
7. Goodman S. Spirit of Stoke Mandeville: the story of Sir Ludwig Guttmann. Collins, London, 1986, p.86-7.
8. Guttmann L, Medawar PB. “The chemical inhibition of fibre regeneration and neuroma formation in peripheral nerves.” J Neurol Psychiatry 1942;5(3-4):130-41.
9. Gutmann E, Guttmann L. “Factors affecting recovery of sensory function after nerve lesions.” J Neurol Psychiatry 1942 ;5(3-4):117-29.
10. Gutmann E, Guttmann L. “The effect of Galvanic exercise on denervated and
11. re-innervated muscles in the rabbit.” J Neurol Psychiatry 1944;7(1-2):7-17.
12. Weddell G, Guttmann L, Gutmann E. “The local extension of nerve fibres into
13. denervated areas of skin.” J Neurol Psychiatry 1941;4(3-4):206-25.