170u can climb back up a stream of radiance to the sky, and back through history up the stream of time. 1 -Robert Frost topics that he judged to be important in brain his- From the last years of the second millennium, tory leading into the end of the century, and was we can look back on antecedent events in neuro- undertaken in response to the enthusiasm gener- science with amazement that so much of modern ated by exhibition at several national and interna- biomedical science was anticipated, or even said or done, in an earlier time. That surprise can be tional meetings of a series oflarge posters for which matched by appreciation for what the pioneer Magoun wrote a 27-page brochure. The posters investigators, with no inkling that they were creat- were viewed by a multitude of young neuroscien- ing a discipline, contributed to its emergence as a tists who wanted more, as well as by mature inves- productive force in human progress. In today's tigators who were warmly pleased to see familiar names and faces from the past. The acclaim was reductionist atmosphere, in which research at the molecular level is producing breathtaking new accompanied by a veritable deluge of requests for knowledge throughout biology, the student may an illustrated, expanded publication.