Recognizing African‐American contributions to neurology: The role of Solomon Carter Fuller (1872–1953) in Alzheimer's disease research

Abstract

Solomon Carter Fuller (1872–1953) is widely acknowledged as the first African‐American psychiatrist but underappreciated as a pioneer of Alzheimer's disease. He immigrated to the United States from Liberia at age 17 and excelled in his medical career to become associate professor of both pathology and neurology at Boston University by 1921. He was one of five research assistants selected by Alois Alzheimer to work in his laboratory at the Royal Psychiatric Hospital in Munich, an experience that arguably paved the way for trailblazing research in Alzheimer's disease. Dr Fuller was the first to translate much of Alzheimer's pivotal work into English, including that of Auguste Deter, the first reported case of the disease. He published what is now recognized to be the first comprehensive review of Alzheimer's disease, in it reporting the ninth case ever described. His achievements, in a period when African‐American physicians were under‐represented, merit greater recognition.

Controversial Past, Splendid Present, Unpredictable Future: A Brief Review of Alzheimer Disease History

“…Kraepelin established a new disease, presenile AD, with only four cases. Only twelve cases were described as such until 1912 but three of them were more than 60 years old [12,[51][52][53]. Many of Kraepelin's contemporaries and posterior pathologists in the first half of the 20th century [12,19,38,46,[51][52][53][54] were not convinced that PreSD and SD were different diseases.…”