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Editorial
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In 1998, Macdonald Critchley and Eileen Critchley published their biography of John Hughlings Jackson (see Brain, 1999; 122: 1199–200). Then in his 98th year, Macdonald Critchley drew on the personal accounts of many from whom he had learned neurology, themselves taught and directly influenced by Hughlings Jackson. Dubbed by Dr and Mrs Critchley as the ‘Father of English Neurology’, the senior author was therefore, in a sense, one of Hughlings Jackson's ‘neurological grandsons’ by direct descent. Their shrewd and informative account is rich in personal and genealogical details, and in its critical appraisal of Hughlings Jackson's writings. He was not an experimentalist but used clinical observation to understand organizational principles in the nervous system. Hughlings Jackson was influenced by colleagues at the West Riding Lunatic Asylum (see Brain 2007; 130: 599–601) and the philosopher Herbert Spencer. He believed that function is not localized but depends on complex orchestration of
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