Sidney Carter, MD (1912–2005)

Figure. Sidney Carter, MD

Dr. Sidney Carter, one of the most eminent and beloved of neurologists and a founder of child neurology, died on Sunday, January 16th, on Cape Cod. He was 92 years old.

Dr. Carter was born in Boston and attended Dartmouth College. He received his medical degree from Boston University in 1938. He interned at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, CT and then trained in psychiatry in 1939 to 1940 at the Westboro State Hospital in Westboro, MA. In 1941, he started his residency in neurology on the Harvard Unit at Boston City Hospital, where Houston Merritt had recently been appointed Acting Director, following the departure of Tracy Putnam to the Neurologic Institute of New York. In addition to Merritt, Carter worked closely with Raymond Adams, then also at the Boston City Hospital. In 1943, Derek Denny-Brown was named Director of the Neurology Service and, 2 years later, Merritt left to direct Columbia’s neurology program at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. Carter had the distinction of being Merritt’s last chief resident at Boston City, and Denny-Brown’s first. During World War II, Carter joined other physicians from the Boston City Hospital at the Seventh General Army Hospital in England, where he was assistant chief of the neuropsychiatric section and the principal neurologic consultant for army casualties.

His military career had …