To describe Denny-Brown’s early life and education in New Zealand, Oxford and London, and how they influenced his career in neurology

Denny-Brown is remembered for his career at Harvard University and Boston City Hospital (1941-1967), but less is known about his life before 1941.

Review of archives and historical manuscripts.

Denny-Brown was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1901, where his father worked for a life insurance company. His secondary schooling was in an isolated town on the west coast of New Zealand. He studied medicine at University of Otago where his interest in the nervous system was stimulated by the Professor of Anatomy, Percy Gowland. After graduating in 1924 he spent a year studying the tuatara brain. With Gowland’s encouragement, Denny-Brown secured a Beit Fellowship, which allowed him to study neurophysiology with Sherrington at Oxford. This resulted in publication of 15 papers, a D.Phil. and co-authorship of “Reflex Activity of the Spinal Cord”. Following his successful early career in basic neurophysiology, Denny-Brown trained in neurology at the National Hospital, Queen Square. He was appointed as neurologist at Queen Square and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In 1936 he worked with Fulton at Yale. His most significant publications in the 1930s were on fibrillation, fasciculation and myotonia and his self-experimentation on micturition and defecation. He was frustrated by lack of time available for research and in 1939 he applied successfully for appointment as Professor of Neurology at Harvard. His commitment to the British Army meant he was unable to take up that position until 1941. From 1939-1941 he conducted experimental research on head injury at St Hugh’s Military Hospital, Oxford.

Denny-Brown’s career in neurology was shaped by his studies in neuroanatomy in New Zealand and neurophysiology in Oxford, and by Gowland, Sherrington and several British neurologists.