As historical editor for Movement Disorders, I plan to organize a series of presentations that will help researchers, clinicians, and scientists interested in function of the basal ganglia to place current advances in a temporal, social, and sometimes political perspective. Most of these presentations will be short and focus on a specific topic, but fulllength manuscripts will be considered for inclusion as well. Because of the journal's emphasis on visual documentation and its accompanying videotape, historical material in the form of photography, and especially old cinematographic material, will be of particular interest. As with other submissions to the journal, historical manuscripts will be peer reviewed, and I welcome suggestions of topics from the readership.
Journals that stress visual documentation and iconography are not new to medicine or neurology. After its discovery in the 19th century, photography was rapidly incorporated into medical theses, journal articles, and textbooks. The most developed of these efforts in neurology occurred in Paris in the form of the Zconographie de la Salpt?tri&e, later reconfigured as the Nouvelle Zconographie de la Salp&tri2re. Published under the direction of Jean-Martin Charcot, the original journal was a limited edition of hand-pasted photographs that depicted patients seen at the SalpCtriere, with an emphasis on hysteria. The later edition was mass produced