In memory of Professor Igor Klatzo (1916-2007)

Igor Klatzo, former Chief of the Laboratory of Neuropathology and Neuroanatomical Sciences at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland USA, passed away on 5th May 2007. This exceptional and colourful man was born on 9th October 1916 in St. Petersburg, Russia, but after the Russian revolution lived in Vilnius, known as a multicultural city, Poland (now Lithuania), where he grew up and was educated. He studied medicine at the King Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. As a medical student, Igor Klatzo was greatly influenced by Prof. Maximilian Rose, a prominent psychiatrist and neurologist. During the Second World War he served as a physician (at the Psychiatric Hospital in Vilnius) in the Polish Underground Home Army (Armia Krajowa) under the direct leadership of the Polish Government-in-exile (London, England). After the war in 1945, he served as a medical doctor in the Polish Red Cross Mission in Germany. He was responsible for assessing the health condition of Polish citizens, former German forced labourers, prior to their repatriation home. Unexpectedly, a visit to his friend from Vilnius Dr Jerzy Olszewski, who worked with Prof. Oskar Vogt at the Brain Research Institute in Neustadt (Black Forest, Germany), changed Igor’s Klatzo life. He was offered a Research Associate position and agreed to work there under the tutelage of Professor Oskar and Cecile Vogt. Prof. Oskar Vogt was the founder of the Wilhelm Keiser Hirnforschung Institute in Berlin-Buch, and presently is considered as a father of modern neuroscience. Prof. Oskar Vogt was also doctor honoris causa of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. Igor Klatzo stayed at the Brain Institute from November 1945 until 1948. During this time he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany (December 1947). With a recommendation letter from Prof. O. Vogt to Prof. Wilder G. Penfield, Director of the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) in Montreal, Canada, Igor Klatzo was able to move together with J. Olszewski to Canada in the spring of 1948. At the MNI Igor Klatzo worked with Prof. Penfield (until 1952) and subsequently with Prof.
G. Lyman in Duff’s Pathological Institute, McGill University (1952-1954). In 1952 he obtained an MSc degree from the same University. Igor Klatzo also received an Allan Blair Memorial Fellowship (awarded by the Canadian...


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