Mental duality in the intact brain

It has been a signal honor to be president of the Los Angeles Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, which supported for 50 years a forum (the Bulletin of the Los Angeles Neurological Societies) for other than routine views, including those of its famous founders. One of these was Dr. J. M. Nielsen. I remember one of his brain cuttings relevant to this paper: After someone had read the history, he said, "Let's look at the anterior commissure." He held the brain with one hand and that big knife in the other (as you know, the anterior commissure is shaped like a handlebar mustache) and he made one curving sweep through the brain; then he lifted off the top half, and there was the full extent of the commissure. Another Founder, Dr. Cyril Courville taught me as a neurology resident for a year, followed by my time with Dr. Philip Vogel, whose skill and intestinal fortitude resurrected cerebral commissurotomy (1). Dr. Courville, as Editor of the Bulletin, was succeeded by Dr. Clarence Olsen who was succeeded in the Bulletin's 30th year by Dr. Richard Walter. This paper is an extension, to some extent, of my articles called The Other Side of the Brain which were published in the Bulletin in 1969 (2-4). Those articles presented ideas some of which may now seem fairly orthodox. But in those days they were not, and I think that Dr. Walter's publishing them was a tribute to his wry sense of humor, as well as his historical perspective.