Sir Charles Putnam Symonds, leading British neurologist, retired last year from his post as neurologist to Guy's Hospital, where he had served for 25 years. His record in neurology is long and distinguished. He has illuminated our knowledge of encephalitis, focal infections of the brain, cerebral trauma, and hereditary and degenerative diseases. He made a brilliant record in World War II in the Royal Air Force, was elevated to the rank of Air Vice-Marshall, and was knighted. In this work he was both neurologist and psychiatrist, reflecting his early interest in psychiatry, shown by his training at the Phipps Clinic, in Baltimore, under Adolf Meyer. He has always believed that the two disciplines should come closer together and has deplored (with me) the recent tendency for separation between the two. In his honor the first number of Guy's Hospital Reports for 1956 1 was made a special number devoted to