Charles Mills, Chair, 1900 — 1915

Within a short time after the hospital in West Philadelphia opened in 1874, Charles Mills, M.D. became chief of the neurology clinic. In 1883, he was appointed Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System.

Charles Mills was born at the Falls of Schuylkill on 12/4/1884. He graduated from Central High School in 1864. His class was known as the war class as many of his classmates served in the Union army. Mills was a teacher for several years before enrolling in Penn’s Medical School in 1869. He also received a PhD in 1871. Dr. Mills practiced general medicine for several years before focusing on nervous and mental diseases. His first major neurologic publication was in 1875 entitled, “A Clinical Note in Forty Cases of Chorea”. There were no Neurologists at this time except for S. Weir Mitchell whose work on civil war injuries essentially created the framework for a specialty dedicated to the nervous system. Mills subsequently had himself appointed neurologist at the Philadelphia Hospital in 1877. This may have been the earliest such appointment in the country as Neurology in Philadelphia and at the University of Pennsylvania was a major impetus for the subsequent evolution of Neurology as its own specialty.

The original clinic consisted of two rooms, a waiting room and a room for examination and treatment. In the first years of the clinic, approximately 80 new patients were seen per year. By 1909, 4824 new and old patient visits were recorded so the end of the nineteenth century saw a rapid growth in the field and number of patients referred for neurologic evaluation. The wards of these patients first occupied a wooden pavilion at Ninth and Chestnut Streets and could only accommodate 20 patients. In 1874, the medical campus in West Philadelphia opened and neurology under Mills largely centered around the wards at the Philadelphia Hospital. Because the University’s medical campus was essentially across the street, Philadelphia Hospital became fertile teaching grounds for Penn, particularly in neurology. The wards for all paralytic patients were put under the charge of neurology and much of Mills’s contribution to the field is based on these patients. Many were long term residents, some as long as 35 years. By 1931, 500 patients occupied these wards.

In 1874, Mills was made chief of the clinic for nervous diseases at the University of Pennsylvania, although it wasn’t until 1877 that he was appointed lecturer in electrotherapeutics in the medical

department of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1893, he was appointed professor of mental diseases and in 1901, he became clinical professor of nervous diseases and in charge of the Department of Neurology at Penn. In 1903 he became professor of neurology.

Mills had an enormous role in advancing clinical neurology as a field. He created the Philadelphia School of Neurology which was recognized throughout the scientific world. He founded the Philadelphia Neurologic Society in 1883 and served as its president 3 times. He was a leading force in the newly formed American Neurologic Association serving as President both in 1887 and 1924 (its 50th anniversary year).

Mills’s predominant scientific interest was in cerebral localization which paralleled the development of clinical neurology as a subspecialty. In 1888, he delineated how motor and sensory areas in the brain were distinct and used electrical stimulation to help localize functions of specific regions in the brain. He was particularly interested in language disorders and contributed substantially to the early understanding of the aphasias. He also studied the effects tumors in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum and spinal cord, and he described the first case of occlusion of the superior cerebellar artery.

Mills also helped spearhead the development of neurosurgery at Penn, writing frequently on cerebral localization based on early neurosurgical cases. Among the list of other neurologic impairments he tackled are multiple neuritis, polio, myotonia, athetosis, hysteria, neuroses, insanity and electrotherapeutics. Additionally, he wrote on a variety of “mental” conditions and the brains of criminals. He also wrote on medico-legal aspects of neurologic diseases.

Dr. Mills was a member of many medical societies throughout the world from which he received numerous honors. He trained more neurologists than anyone else at the time, yet also had many other interests. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and Academy of Natural Sciences, where he also lectured.

Dr. Mills resigned the Chair of Neurology in 1915 and in 1916, he received an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania in recognition of his enormous contributions to his field and to the university.

Sources

Chair photo: Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. From the Images of the History of Medicine
(http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/images/B30292)