Raymond Delacy Adams (February 13, 1911 – October 18, 2008) was an American neurologist,

neuropathologist Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole-body autopsies. Neuropathologists usually work in a department of anatomic pathology, but work closely with the clinic ...

, Bullard Professor of Neuropathology at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

and chief of neurology at

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

. Along with neurologist Maurice Victor, Adams was the author of ''Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology'', the 12th edition of which appeared, 50 years after the original. Born near

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, Adams was the son of William Henry Adams and Eva Mabel Morriss. He graduated from the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

with a degree in Psychology. He received his M.D. from the

Duke University School of Medicine The Duke University School of Medicine, commonly known as Duke Med, is the medical school of Duke University. It is located in the Collegiate Gothic-style West Campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The School of Medicine, along wit ...

in 1936. Adams became chief of neurology at Massachusetts General in 1951 retiring in 1977. Adams had an encyclopedic knowledge of adult neurology, pediatric neurology, and neuropathology and is widely regarded as a pre-eminent neurologist of the mid-20th century. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1955. He helped found the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Mental Retardation. Writing together with the founder of the neuropathology lab at the

Charles S. Kubik, Adams wrote clinico-pathological papers, one in 1946 describing occlusion of the

basilar artery The basilar artery () is one of the arteries that supplies the brain with oxygen-rich blood. The two vertebral arteries and the basilar artery are known as the vertebral basilar system, which supplies blood to the posterior part of the circle of W ...

, and another in 1952 comparing and contrasting the demyelinating diseases including acute and chronic

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

. In 1949, together with Joseph Michael Foley he described negative myoclonus and in 1953 they coined the term

asterixis Asterixis, more colloquially referred to as flapping tremor, is a tremor of the hand when the wrist is extended, sometimes said to resemble a bird flapping its wings. This motor disorder is characterized by an inability to maintain a position, wh ...

. In 1959, Adams and colleagues first described central pontine myelinolysis, a disease stripping the

myelin Myelin is a lipid-rich material that surrounds nerve cell axons (the nervous system's "wires") to insulate them and increase the rate at which electrical impulses (called action potentials) are passed along the axon. The myelinated axon can be ...

insulation from

axons An axon (from Greek ἄξων ''áxōn'', axis), or nerve fiber (or nerve fibre: see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, in vertebrates, th ...

within the brain, but distinct from

. Together with the Australian neurologist James Waldo Lance he described posthypoxic myoclonus, later called

Lance-Adams syndrome Lance-Adams syndrome (LAS) is a sequela of hypoxic encephalopathy due to respiratory arrest, airway obstruction, cardiac arrest, etc. , several days after the onset of hypoxic encephalopathy. A condition that presents with functional myoclonus asso ...

. Adams, in collaboration with Canadian neurologist Dr. C. Miller Fisher, made contributions to the field of cerebrovascular disease, the syndrome of "

transient global amnesia Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a neurological disorder whose key defining characteristic is a temporary but almost total disruption of short-term memory with a range of problems accessing older memories. A person in a state of TGA exhibits no o ...

" in 1964, and in 1965 he published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine describing the syndrome of "normal pressure hydrocephalus". In 1964 he clinically and pathologically distinguished an atypical Parkinsonian syndrome, striato-nigral degeneration, now considered an α-synucleinopathy under the umbrella term multiple system atrophy. His 1965 paper with Drs. M. Victor and M. Cole describing the effects on the brain of liver failure and of porto-systemic shunting of venous intestinal blood around the liver has been cited over 500 times in the medical literature. Adams died in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

of complications from

congestive heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

, aged 97.

References

Further reading