Lucky accidents do happen. As a first year resident (house staff) in internal medicine at the Montreal General Hospital, I was sent for a month to the investigative unit that relied heavily on radiology. The Quebec province radiologists went on strike, the unit closed and I was reassigned to the neurology service. I had always been intrigued by neurology but I shared the then common belief that neurology was very complicated and offered little therapy. The residents were on rounds with Dr Donald Baxter, the head of neurology. A 57-year-old French Canadian man presented with baffling symptoms. I stood at the end of the …