Charles Karsner Mills

Charles Karsner Mills, M.D. (December 4, 1845 – May 28, 1931) was an American physician and a pioneer in neurology. He founded the first neurology department in a general hospital in the United States at the Philadelphia General Hospital in 1877 and served as chief of neurology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He was a professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1877 to 1915. He founded the Philadelphia Polyclinic and taught there as professor of diseases of the mind and nervous system from 1883 to 1898. He led major reforms to psychiatric hospitals in the Philadelphia area including the closing of the Blockley Almshouse and the construction of the Philadelphia General Hospital and Byberry Hospital for Mental Diseases. He published over 300 scientific papers on neurology topics including cerebral localization, electrotherapeutics, aphasias and the effects of tumors in the central nervous system. In 1900, he first described a case of ascending paralysis, a rare motor neuron condition that has become known as Mills' syndrome.

Early life and education Mills was born on December 4, 1845, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to James and Lavinia Ann (Fitzgerald) Mills. He attended Central High School but left school early to serve as a private in the 8th regiment of Pennsylvania militia in 1862 and 1863 during the American Civil War. He was later commissioned 1st corporal in the 33rd regiment and fought against the Army of Northern Virginia as they retreated from the Battle of Gettysburg. He returned to Central High School and graduated in 1864.

He worked as a teacher for several years and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1869. He also received a Ph.D. degree in 1871.

Mills was invited to participate in the high profile autopsy of Charles J. Guiteau, who was hanged for the 1882 assassination of President James A. Garfield. Mills used the findings from the autopsy to support his theories about the neurology of the criminally insane.

Mills held numerous positions in scientific and medical associations. He was president of the Northern Medical Association of Philadelphia in 1876. He founded the Philadelphia Neurological Society in 1884

Personal life He married Clara Elizabeth Peale in 1878 and together they had four children.

Publications The Schuykill, Philadelphia: Jno. A. Haddock, 1876 First Lessons in Physiology and Hygiene, Philadelphia: Eldredge & Brother, 1883 Mental Over-work and Premature Disease Among Public and Professional Men, Washington: Smithsonian Institution, January, 1885 Benjamin Rush and American Psychiatry, The Medico-Legal Journal 4(3) (Dec. 8, 1886): 238-273. The Nervous System and its Diseases: A Practical Treatise on Neurology for the use of Physicians and Students Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1898 Aphasia and the Cerebral Zone of Speech, American Journal of the Medical-Sciences, January 1904 The Nursing and Care of the Nervous and the Insane Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1905 Tumors of the Cerebellum. New York: A.R. Elliott Publishing Company, 1905 Psychotherapy: Its Scope and Limitations, Monthly Cyclopaedia and Medical Bulletin, July 1908 The Philadelphia Almshouse and the Philadelphia Hospital From 1854 to 1908, Philadelphia: Founders' Week Memorial Volume, 1908 Concerning Cerebral Morphology in its Relation to Cerebral Localization, Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease 42(6) (June 1915): 322-357 Historical Notes on the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, With Some Discussion of Recent Problems in Medical Teaching, New York Medical Journal, April 21, 1917