Editorial evolution

explanation of the relevance of the astonishing advances
in molecular genetics to neurological practice. We hope
that this series will stimulate not just interest but lively
debate in our correspondence section. The Neurological
Management series will also be published as a book in
due course.

These changes will not deflect the journal from its
main task of publishing the best papers in clinical neuro-
logical, neurosurgical, and neuropsychiatric science.
Previous changes have been followed by gratifying

improvements in the position ofJNNP in various citation
indices. If the copy of the journal that you are reading
is not your own, check whether your membership of
your national Neurological Society entitles you to an
individual subscription at a discount that is almost half
price.

RAC HUGHES
Department ofNeurology,
UMDS, Guy's Hospital,
London SEI 9RT, UK

Neurological stamp

Casper Wistar (1760-1818)

Caspar Wistar obtained his medical education at the
University of the State of Pennsylvania in the United
States and at Edinburgh University in the United
Kingdom, where he was twice president of a student
organisation, The Royal Medical Society. He also
assisted in organising a natural history society.
He returned to the United States, practised in

Philadelphia and, in 1789, was appointed Professor of
Chemistry, later Professor of Anatomy, Surgery, and
Midwifery, and then Professor of Anatomy. Wistar
described the ethmoid bone. His text book A system of
anatomy for the use of students of medicine (two volumes,
1811-14) was the first such American work.
He had weekly library gatherings at his home with

members of the American Philosophical Society to
which, in 1787, he succeeded Thomas Jefferson as
President. These famous meetings, which continued after
his death, were known as Wistar parties.

Wisteria, a high-climbing, woody vine of the pea
family, native to China, Japan, and eastern North
America, was named after Wistar by the botanist and
ornithologist Thomas Nuttal. A Japanese stamp issued in
1986 shows the wisteria vine (Stanley Gibbons 1052,
Scott 881A).

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