The
Swiss Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry were founded in 1917 by Constantin von Monakow. The main motivation was the growing need for an independent Swiss journal. Previously Swiss neurologists had had to submit their scientific contributions to German or French journals, with the result that they were often insufficiently informed of their own compatriots’ work. For the Swiss Neurological Society, established in 1908, the foundation of the Swiss Archives was also a milestone in its battle to be accepted as an independent medical faculty. While the papers were mainly Swiss authored, the Swiss Archives also occupied a significant international position from the outset, as witness the regular contributions from well-known European neurologists. Constantin von Monakow remained editor-inchief until his death in 1930. Most of the famous (neuro-)scientific-philosophical works written during the last 15 years of his life were published in the Swiss Archives. Certainly the most outstanding volume was No 13 (1923), which contains 52 articles by the most renowned neurologists, psychiatrists, neuroanatomists and physiologists of that time as a
festschrift for Constantin von Monakow’s 70th birthday. After Constantin von Monakow’s death, R. Bing (Basel) and M.Minkowski (Zurich) took over as editors of the neurology section. Both neurologists published a considerable number of papers in the
Swiss Archives and contributed greatly to the quality of the journal, not least through their contacts with scientists from all over the world. It was in the
Swiss Archives that M. Minkowski published his well-known work on the course of the optic nerve fibres (1920) and studies on the reflexes of the human foetus (1924, 1925). The 1st International Neurological Congress, which took place in Berne in 1931, was an important event in the history of Swiss neurology and formed the subject of a commentary in the
Swiss Archives. At the end of the congress all the participants received a presentation copy of the most recent volume of the
Swiss Archives. During the years preceding World War II the
Swiss Archives played a remarkable international role by continuing to publish foreign papers, despite growing nationalism and racism in the surrounding countries of Europe.The journal also appeared regularly during the war. In 1959 the neurosurgeon H. Krayenbühl, who in 1941 had published his classic work on cerebral aneurysm in the
Swiss Archives, became editor-inchief. During his editorship the journal’s name was expanded to
Swiss Archives of
Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (until 1986). The most cited papers since 1945 have been those of R. Adams (on normopressive hydrocephalus) and B. Roth (on narcolepsy and hypersomnia). Several contributions have come from related specialities, e.g. the physiologist and Nobel Prizewinner W. Hess wrote on the autonomic nervous system, the anatomist G. Töndury on foetopathies and the paediatrician G. Fanconi on poliomyelitis.
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