Miller Fisher

Charles Miller Fisher, usually known as C. Miller Fisher (December 5, 1913, Waterloo, Ontario – April 14, 2012, Albany, New York) was a pioneering neurologist. Trained in Canada, he spent 1949 at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by several years in Montreal. In 1954 he returned to Massachusetts General on the stroke service, beginning a long career in stroke neurology. In 1956 he reported the variant of Guillain–Barré syndrome that now carries his name. Fisher was the recipient of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada's Prize in Medicine in 1952, and entered the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 1998. Fisher is credited with describing the clinical syndrome of the transient ischemic attack ("mini-stroke"). Fisher proved, by a series of pathological studies, the relationship between stroke and the formation of blood clots in the heart in patients with atrial fibrillation. He also showed the relationship between stroke and carotid artery stenosis, which made preventive surgery possible and greatly reduced the incidence of subsequent strokes.] He was a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital Stroke Service. Fisher is the namesake of the Harvard Neurology Residency Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. He contributed greatly towards the current use of anticoagulants for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation.

He contributed greatly to the understanding of stroke, more specifically carotid artery disease and lacunar infarcts and their syndromes. With regards to the lacunar syndromes he described the concept, the "pure motor stroke", the "pure sensory stroke", and the mechanism underlying the different stroke syndromes. He made a number of contributions to the understanding of cervical artery dissection (carotid artery dissection and vertebral artery dissection) in the 1970s, and that of subarachnoid hemorrhage due to cerebral aneurysms.

Fisher also developed the Miller Fisher test used in the diagnosis of normal pressure hydrocephalus.