Peaceful psychiatry
Archibald Ley goes back to neurology, to science. The work in the neurological department of the London Hospital is progressing, and cooperation with a famous neurologist with a terrific name for his profession - Walter Russell Brain, the first Baron Brain. It is funny that Lord Brain has long been the editor of Brain magazine. Lord Brain is also known as the discoverer of Brain's quadripedal reflex: if a patient with limb weakness of one half of the body becomes four, the affected arm is straightened out.
However, it is Brain and Leigh who have two important things going on: he gets the cherished letters MD - "doctor of medicine" in the lifelong prefix to the name and understands that neurology is not his at all. His life's work is also related to the brain, but it's psychiatry.
In 1949 he became a consultant in two psychiatric hospitals - Moodleigh and St. Mary of Bethlehem, the famous Bedlam. However, he was not allowed to forget his neurology: after the war, young specialists were in short supply, and he had to work not only as a psychiatrist in these hospitals but also to supervise their neurological departments. However, it was there that he made the discovery that immortalized his name.
In 1951, the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry published an article entitled "Subacute necrotizing encephalopathy in an infant, J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry", which describes a patient at Kings College Hospital who died at the age of 7 months.
During his seven months of short life, he suffered from drowsiness, breathing problems, blindness, deafness and bilateral spasticity (increased tone and muscle twitching).
A detailed history and pathological description led to the description of a new disease - Ley syndrome. Now we know that it is caused by mutations in the DNA and, as we have already written, understand what can be done with it. And Ley's article is still actively quoted.
In 1955, Ley became an FRCP, an honorary member of the Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Success? Can you rest on your laurels at the age of 40? Nothing like that!
to be continued in the next part