Agents of change

Dramatic change is often difficult to appreciate in real time. Some discoveries so irrevocably modify paradigms that the gravity of the change can only be fully appreciated much later. Examples in medicine include the germ theory and antisepsis, ether and anesthesia, immunizations, neuroimaging, and in the epilepsy world, the advent of the electroencephalogram (EEG). Yet, a curious thing happened with EEG, neurology and psychiatry actually diverged, and a distinct separation in the mindsets of the two fields became the norm.