Most biological and medical disciplines evolved over decades as the result of scientific advance. For example, the subdivisions of biology, such as botany, physiology, anatomy, pharmacology, population biology, and neurobiology, slowly split off from the parent discipline as knowledge expanded. Likewise, the clinical disciplines developed as a result of increasing knowledge, first into the major divisions of surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics, etc., and then into subspecialties. Pulmonary medicine, cardiology, rheumatology, hematology come readily to mind as fields that became distinct because of the increasing complexity of knowledge about the pathology, physiology, and pharmacology of the organ systems involved.

The founding of endocrinology as a biological and medical discipline is in distinct contrast. Most students of the subject are in agreement that the birth of endocrinology occurred a hundred years ago last summer, June 1, 1889, as a result of the presentation of a paper at the meeting of the Societe de Biologie of Paris by Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard (1) (Fig. 1).

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