Vignette Graerne M. Hammond and the ANA Graeme M. Hammond, MD (1858-1944), was exuberant, not only socially but professionally and recreationally. His father, William A. Hammond, MD, a Civil War Surgeon General, was a founder of the ANA and its president in 1882. Graeme Hammond’s vitality and intellect brought him recognition in his own right, including the ANA presidency in 1898 [I]. He collaborated with his father on the Ninth Edition (1892) of the country’s first neurology text, A Treatise on Diseases of the Neruous System, and his own considerable bibliography reflected broad neuropsychiatric interests. H e reported clinical and neuropathological studies of vascular disease, movement disorders, infectious diseases (especially poliomyelitis and syphilis), peripheral nerve disorders, headache, and psychiatric illness. Perhaps the most prescient of his writings was, ‘The Bicycle in the Treatment of Nervous Diseases” [2), in which he extolled the therapeutic importance of physical exercise. (‘‘The value of systematic exercise . . . is certainly not fully appreciated by the average physician . . . . As a class they take little or no active and regular exercise.”) A noted sportsman, he held undergraduate track records at Columbia, was an amateur wrestler and boxer, and was national fencing champion, competing in the 1912 Olympics when over age 50. He was the last American to be eliminated by the European fencers 131. Dr Hammond graduated from New York University Medical College in 1881 and New York University Law School in 1900. He was professor of neurology and psychiatry at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School 1896-1920. In World War I he was a major in the medical corps, becoming an authority on the rehabilitation of shell-shocked soldiers. Commentators noted Dr Hammond‘s continual good cheer and infectious warmth {4]. Perhaps his ambassadorial charm was inherited from his direct ancestor, Sir John Hammond, the first British ambassador to the newformed United States of America.

Robert H . Ackerman, MD Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA 02 114 The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Washington, DC 20306 References 1. Tileny F, Jeliffe E, eds. Semi-centennial anniversary volume of the American Neurological Association (1875- 1924). Albany, NY: Boyd Printing Company, 1924 2. Hamrnond GM. The bicycle in the treatment of nervous diseases. J New Ment Dis, January 1892 3. Obituary. Psychiatr Q 1945;19:182 4. Obituary. N Y Times, October 31, 1944, p. 19

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(A) “There is another, who for many years played an important role in the history of this organization. For 5 and 20 years he was the stern guardian of its exchenuer and the Napoleon of its social destinies. During his regime there reigned financial chaos, but the Society reached its zenith in social activities, the annual dinner for moral reconstruction, but a bacchanalian revel in which he himseIfalways played the title role. No member of this association has felt more poignantly the passage of the Volstead Act (which introduced the Prohibition Era) but his cheerful soul and iron will have taught him to bow his head t o inexorable fate and meet an unhappy situation with peacdul resignation. This shows our former secretary on his beautiful family estate on the shore of Long Island, within easy reach of New York fishing jeet. As you see he has abandoned his militay tastes and has interested himself in naval tactics. In the next war he will not be Colonel but Commodore.” { l } (B) Graeme M. Hammond, MD, President of the American Neurological Asociation, 1898.

224 Copyright 0 1992 by the American Neurological Association