Russell DeJong: "The most scholarly neurologist in the Academy"

Russell Nelson DeJong (1907-1990) became professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan in 1950. A prolific author with more than 200 publications, DeJong wrote on virtually all areas of neurology. DeJong's classic monograph, The Neurologic Examination (1950), grew into an encyclopedic volume from lectures he gave to junior and senior medical students; DeJong saw it through four editions. He was one of the founders of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), serving as its vice-president from 1961 to 1963 and as the first editor-in-chief of its journal, Neurology. Abraham Baker, the driving force behind the founding of the AAN, considered DeJong "the most scholarly neurologist in the Academy." DeJong was also president of the American Neurological Association, president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, president of the American Epilepsy Society, and chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Multiple Sclerosis.