Henry Hun and his family: Three foundational stories in the history of nineteenth-century American neurology, Part I. Thomas Hun (1808-1896): Nineteenth-century patriarch, neurophilosopher, and proto-neurologist.

Abstract

Thomas Hun (1808-1896)-along with his sons Edward (1842-1880) and Henry (1854-1924)-were prime movers in establishing the clinical practice and academic discipline of neurology in the Hudson River Valley of New York in the ninteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This article outlines the life of the family's semi-aristocratic patriarch, beginning with Thomas's unusual educational background and his six-year post-graduate hiatus in Paris of the 1830s, where he came under the influence of P. C. A. Louis (1787-1872). It lays out his subsequent career as professor of the Institutes of Medicine and ultimately as dean of an American medical school that was not situated in a major metropolis. It also will demonstrate how Thomas Hun's career as a medical practitioner, academician, neurophilosopher, and "proto-neurologist" recapitulates the evolution of clinical and academic neurology in nineteenth-century America.