Neurologic Differential Diagnosis

Alan B. Ettinger, Deborah M. Weisbrot

"There is an apocryphal story of an eminent neurology professor who was asked to provide a differential diagnosis. He allegedly quipped: "I can't give you a differential diagnosis. If you wish I will give you a list of wrong diagnoses followed by the right diagnosis." Sadly, this sort of arrogance pervaded our field, particularly in the era before there were accurate diagnostic methods and effective treatments of neurological diseases. Fortunately, this sort of pomposity is now relegated to the past and remains only as an antique reminder of a type of hubris that precluded discovery and progress in diseases of the nervous system"--