Robert Graves and neurology: a bicentenary tribute.

Armand Trousseau of Paris praised The Clinical Lectures of Robert James Graves (1796-1853). The Dublin physician's book never left Trousseau's study; he valued particularly 'the lectures which treat of paralysis'. These, he said, 'contain a complete doctrine', enlarging concepts introduced by Whytt and Procháska. Gowers (1902) and Kinnier Wilson (1954) credited Graves with an early account of peripheral neuritis; more recently Lawrence C. McHenry (1969) referred to him as the first to recognise that disease processes may affect the peripheral nerves. This and other contributions of Robert Graves to neurology are discussed against the contemporary framework appropriate to the bicentenary year.