![]() Reading the research in chronological order was like listening to physicians and scientists conversing across time. In constructing a time line of how knowledge on head injuries evolved from the eighteen-seventies onward, he drew on more than a thousand primary sources, including medical-journal articles, textbooks, and monographs. He turned his attention to a vast archive of scientific and medical papers going back more than a century. ![]() Casper agreed to work for the hockey players. His dissertation explored the emergence of neurology in the U.K.-a history that included the study of shell shock and head injury in the First and Second World Wars. ![]() in the history of medicine from University College London. In essence, the legal team wanted a historian to tell them what science had known about head trauma, and when.Ĭasper, a history professor at Clarkson University, in upstate New York, had majored in neuroscience and biochemistry, worked in a lab studying dementia in mice, and earned his Ph.D. was being described as a shocking syndrome that had never been noticed in sports outside of boxing. A form of dementia called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., had recently been posthumously identified in dozens of former pro football and hockey players diagnosable only through a brain autopsy, it was thought to be caused by concussions-injuries in which the brain is twisted or bumped against the inside of the skull-and by recurring subconcussive blows to the head. The lawyers, unusually, wanted to hire a historian. had failed to warn them about how routine head punches and jolts in hockey could put them at risk for degenerative brain damage. They were representing a group of retired hockey players who were suing the National Hockey League their suit argued that the N.H.L. ![]() In July, 2015, Stephen Casper, a medical historian, received a surprising e-mail from a team of lawyers. ![]()
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