FROM TIME TO time in medical history, organs and organ systems slip from experimental and clinical favor, only later to be rediscovered and restored to a place of interest. Even that most noble organ, the brain, has had waxing and waning periods of scientific concern. Current fascination in its function has been matched by an equal interest in varying degrees of brain pathology. As might be expected, when such pathology occurs in the developing brain it provides not only areas of research potential but also confusion in clinical pictures in the growing child. Fortunately, a variety of investigators looking at the child and his maturing brain from many angles are bringing light to a most confusing syndrome, the one commonly called, "minimal brain damage."
This concept of "brain damage" in children as used to imply a behavioral condition of organic nature but without hard neurological signs, has been in common