[4][7] Ludo van Bogaert (Belgium, 1897–1989), Armand Lowenthal (The Netherlands, 1919–2001) and Charles Poser (Belgium, 1923–2010) discussed the formation of a club consisting mainly of neuropathologists (named were Erna Christensen, Aagot Christie Löken, Willibald Scholz, Julius Hallervorden, Hugo Spatz, Georges Schaltenbrand, Ivan Bertrand, Jean-Emmanuel Grüner) and some neurologists[8] (MacDonald Critchley, Raymond Garcin, Georg Herman Monrad-Krohn).
The purpose was primarily to collect reprints and unpublished doctoral theses in a central location (e.g. the Institute Bunge).
A draft WFN constitution was prepared by Ludo van Bogaert, Houston Merritt, MacDonald Critchley, Auguste Tournay, Georg Schaltenbrand and Pearce Bailey, with Charles Poser as Secretary.
[10] The meetings were attended by 38 national delegates representing 29 national societies from Europe, Latin American (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay), USA, Africa (South Africa) and Asia (Iran and India):[4][citation needed] Ludo van Bogaert was unanimously elected President of the new organisation.
Among them were Macdonald Critchley, Eddie P. Bharucha (Bombay, India), Russell N. DeJong (Ann Arbor, USA), Georg Schaltenbrand (West Germany), Francois Thiébaut (Strasbourg, France), Oscar Montes Trelles (Lima, Peru), and Semen Aleksandrovich Sarkisov (Moscow, USSR).
The concept of World Brain Day was born over a corridor conversation between Tissa Wijeratne, Mohommad Wasay and Vladimir Hachinski in 2010.
Van Bogaert and the leadership of the WFN realised the importance of creating groups of international leaders in various fields of neurology.
As the Editor-in-Chief wrote in his first editorial:[19]Right from the beginning we are emphasising the international and multilingual nature of this publication as well as the variety of the aspects of neurology which we hope to cover.
... World Neurology… requests review papers on current concepts and recent advances in their field of endeavour from authorities in clinical and basic neurology and the allied disciplines.
Charles Poser was replaced with Gilbert Glaser as Editor-in-Chief in September 1961 and World Neurology stopped publication in December 1962.
Masland realised the importance of a separate newsletter with information of the development of the WFN, news from the Research Groups and communication about activities in the neurosciences worldwide.
The first Newsletter of the World Federation of Neurology appeared as Highlights of the Meeting of the Council of Delegates and Research Committee WFN Hamburg, November 15, 1983.
Several pharmaceutical companies, Eisai, Hoechst Marion Roussel, Schering Healthcare, Lilly, and Smith Kline Beecham, gave substantial grants to help with the costs of publishing World Neurology in its new format, first with Eldred Smith-Gordon and subsequently with Cambridge Medical Publications.
[citation needed] In January 2013, World Neurology ceased printing in hard-copy and made available only as a new digital edition[21] through Ascend Integrated Media.
Examples include neuromuscular diseases, demyelination, atrophies, dementia, neoplasms, infections, epilepsies, disturbances of consciousness, stroke and cerebral circulation, growth and development, plasticity and intermediary metabolism.
Van Bogaert was positive to having Russian as an official language, but pointed out that the printing costs would be too high because of the Cyrillian alphabet.
Reports from Council of Delegates, of Committee meetings and of WFN administrative affairs were published, often occupying several pages, but not always read as thoroughly as hoped.
Bernard Sachs was the Congress President, Sir Charles Sherrington (1857–1952) Vice-President and Henry Alsop Riley (1887–1966) the Secretary-General.
The Congress, which was a result of a generous initiative by the American Neurological Association, brought together individuals from 42 countries of several continents.