MacDonald Critchley

MacDonald Critchley (born February 2, 1900; died October 15 1997) was a British neurologist. He was former president of the World Federation of Neurology, and the author of over 200 published articles on neurology and 20 books, including The Parietal Lobes (1953), Aphasiology, and biographies of James Parkinson and Sir William Gowers.

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MacDonald Critchley was educated in Bristol and received his medical degree there. His professional life centred on King's College Hospital and National Hospital, Queen Square "for the Paralysed and Epileptic", London. He was a Registrar in 1927, and he was appointed to the staff as a physician in the following year and later became Dean of the Institute at Queen Square. His influence spread throughout the neurological world by teaching and writings and he later became President of the World Federation of Neurology.

His contributions to knowledge depended not on technology, but on his power of observation and meticulous dissection of human sensibility and behaviour. The best known of his works were those on aphasia and the parietal lobes. Headache was also one of his many interests. He started a Headache Clinic at King's College Hospital and was one of the founders of the "British Migraine Trust". He delivered a paper at the "First Migraine Symposium" in 1966 on "Migraine: from Cappadocia to Queen Square", combining his clinical interest with his love of history. Critchley was a handsome and impressive figure, a superb speaker and a lifelong student of the human mind. His last book on the life and career of Hughlings Jackson, jointly with his wife Eileen, has been published posthumously.

Associated eponyms

• Adie-Critchley syndrome: A syndrome of forced grasping and groping.
• Levine-Critchley syndrome: Acanthocytosis with neurologic disorders (Neuroacanthocytosis).

Bibliography

• The Parietal Lobes. London, Edward Arnold, 1953
• The enigma of Gertsmann's syndrome. Oxford, Brain, 1966
• Music and the Brain: Studies in the Neurology of Music (with R.A.Henson). London, Heinemann, 1977
• John Hughlings Jackson, Father of English Neurology (with Eileen A. Critchley). London, 1998