Neurologist

BALTIMORE - Stress, family medical history or possibly even poison led to the death of Vladimir Lenin, contradicting a popular theory that a sexually transmitted disease debilitated the former Soviet Union leader, a UCLA neurologist said Friday. Dr. Harry Vinters and Russian historian Lev Lurie reviewed Lenin's records Friday for an annual University of Maryland School of Medicine conference that examines the death of famous figures. The conference is held yearly at the school, where researchers in the past have reexamined the diagnoses of figures including King Tut, Christopher Columbus, Simon Bolivar, and Abraham Lincoln.

Today is D day for Flyers center Eric Lindros. A meeting in Chicago with neurologist James Kelly will have a great impact on whether Lindros, recovering from a concussion, will play again this spring. Kelly will administer another neuropsychological baseline test to determine if Lindros' results are close to what his test score was last fall, when he was healthy. "I feel really good, and I feel confident going into this test," Lindros said last night from his South Jersey home.

In the 1600s, philosopher Ren? Descartes proposed what has come to be called "mind-body dualism," the idea that the mind and body are separate. His theory was hugely influential and still permeates the way many of us in the West think about ourselves. Oliver Sacks, the well-known neurologist and author (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), hopes this will be the century when Descartes' dualism finally falls by the wayside and a worldview more in line with one of his contemporaries gains dominance.

B. Franklin Diamond, 69, of Rydal, a neurologist, died of a stroke Tuesday, May 17, at Abington Memorial Hospital, where he had established the first accredited Acute Care Stroke Center in Pennsylvania. Dr. Diamond, who established the center in 1998, had recently developed, with the Montgomery County Second Alarmers Rescue Squad, an innovative stroke protocol. The protocol was used when the rescue squad arrived at Dr. Diamond's home. It assures that stroke patients receive immediate treatment when they reach the hospital.

Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson said he saw independent neurologist Dr. William Welch yesterday and that he will practice today. Jackson did not say whether Welch gave him final clearance to play Sunday against the Colts. In fact, he said he is still "taking it day by day" as he recovers from a concussion suffered Oct. 17 against the Falcons. Jackson, speaking on Comcast SportsNet's "Daily News Live," said he was ready to "start off fresh. " He said his violent collision with the Falcons' Dunta Robinson wasn't so much of a trauma to his head as a "whiplash-type injury" to his shoulders and neck.

Flyers center Eric Lindros said yesterday that he may not be ready to play hockey - for any team - until three or four months into next season. "We have to see what the doctor says, but that might be something that I have to look at," Lindros said from his summer cottage outside Toronto. Those familiar with his situation said Lindros may be advised by Chicago-based neurologist James Kelly to stay off the ice and away from contact until December or January. Lindros has suffered six concussions during his career, including four in a five-month span last season.

On the day Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin gingerly walked out of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital wearing green hospital scrubs and an immobilizing upper body/neck brace, a Philadelphia neurologist publicly urged the NFL to better enforce its rules governing dangerous hits. Irvin had regained full use of his motor functions by yesterday morning after a play in Sunday's game against the Eagles left him with swelling in two places of his spinal cord near the base of the skull.

A dead man appears to walk through an Egyptian tomb in one of Sami Khella's recent paintings, while in the background, a female figure seems to squat, about to give birth. "Life continues," Khella says, interpreting the large oil painting hanging in his Gladwyne studio. The painting will be shown from Oct. 1 to 25 at Episcopal Academy in Merion, along with 30 other recent Khella works. Khella, 49, a diminutive man who emigrated from Egypt 40 years ago, is like a variation of the cat: Instead of nine lives, he has two, and they complement each other.

Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby will meet with a specialist this week because of lingering concussionlike symptoms. Crosby hasn't played since Dec. 5 following a recurrence of the symptoms that sidelined him for more than 10 months last year. The team said Crosby will work with chiropractic neurologist Ted Carrick, who treated Crosby for similar symptoms last summer. The 24-year-old star skated with his teammates for the first time in more than a month on Friday, a first step in what could be another long comeback.

Steve Young will miss at least a week and possibly more because of his latest concussion, though tests showed no signs of more serious brain trauma, the agent for the San Francisco 49ers quarterback said yesterday. Young took a frightening hit midway through Monday night's victory at Arizona and left with his fourth concussion since 1996. He underwent an MRI yesterday and then met with Dr. Gary Steinberg, the chief neurologist at Stanford Hospital, who treated Young when he suffered his last concussion two years ago. "The MRI did not show any of the so-called white spots, which are thought to be indicative of progressive brain trauma," said agent Leigh Steinberg, who is not related to the neurologist.

BALTIMORE - Stress, family medical history or possibly even poison led to the death of Vladimir Lenin, contradicting a popular theory that a sexually transmitted disease debilitated the former Soviet Union leader, a UCLA neurologist said Friday. Dr. Harry Vinters and Russian historian Lev Lurie reviewed Lenin's records Friday for an annual University of Maryland School of Medicine conference that examines the death of famous figures. The conference is held yearly at the school, where researchers in the past have reexamined the diagnoses of figures including King Tut, Christopher Columbus, Simon Bolivar, and Abraham Lincoln.

Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby will meet with a specialist this week because of lingering concussionlike symptoms. Crosby hasn't played since Dec. 5 following a recurrence of the symptoms that sidelined him for more than 10 months last year. The team said Crosby will work with chiropractic neurologist Ted Carrick, who treated Crosby for similar symptoms last summer. The 24-year-old star skated with his teammates for the first time in more than a month on Friday, a first step in what could be another long comeback.

B. Franklin Diamond, 69, of Rydal, a neurologist, died of a stroke Tuesday, May 17, at Abington Memorial Hospital, where he had established the first accredited Acute Care Stroke Center in Pennsylvania. Dr. Diamond, who established the center in 1998, had recently developed, with the Montgomery County Second Alarmers Rescue Squad, an innovative stroke protocol. The protocol was used when the rescue squad arrived at Dr. Diamond's home. It assures that stroke patients receive immediate treatment when they reach the hospital.

Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson said he saw independent neurologist Dr. William Welch yesterday and that he will practice today. Jackson did not say whether Welch gave him final clearance to play Sunday against the Colts. In fact, he said he is still "taking it day by day" as he recovers from a concussion suffered Oct. 17 against the Falcons. Jackson, speaking on Comcast SportsNet's "Daily News Live," said he was ready to "start off fresh. " He said his violent collision with the Falcons' Dunta Robinson wasn't so much of a trauma to his head as a "whiplash-type injury" to his shoulders and neck.

"Excuses are the tools with which persons with no purpose in view build for themselves great monuments of nothing. " - Actor Steven Grayhm NEARLY EVERY day of his adult life, most people who meet him ask Larry Charleston IV if he's a basketball player. Sure the 6-foot-6-inch, athletic, classically black and beautiful 32-year-old could have taken that path. However, Larry, a very eligible bachelor, answers that most frequently asked question with a confident and knowing smile and a simple, "No, actually I am a doctor, a neurologist.

Every day, Dawn Freney looks at her six children with fresh gratitude, amazed to think each of them protected her while growing in her womb. It's a logical thought. Last spring, the busy West Chester volleyball mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her neurologists, who estimated she's had the crippling disorder for at least nine years, marveled at her vigor, considering she'd had no MS treatment. What she did have, one after another, were babies. And pregnancy is a time when women with MS usually get a reprieve from the intermittent immune-cell attacks that damage the nervous system.

John Craig Bell, 67, a beloved neurologist fondly remembered for his thriftiness and the inventive ways he used duct tape to extend the life of items, including his tennis shoes, died Jan. 25 of olivopontocerebellar atrophy, a rare neurological disease, at home in Montgomeryville. "John was a bright child," said his sister, Barbara Seeley. "He played chess, learned to speak Russian and went on hospital rounds with our father, who was a psychiatrist. But he was a humble person who did not speak of his accomplishments.

By day Steven E. Mazlin tends to his patients, those with multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, brain tumors, and other neurological ailments. When darkness comes, another world beckons, luring Mazlin down a curving staircase into the basement of his palatial Upper Makefield home and out to his one-acre backyard, where he begins the night's work. A board-certified neurologist in Langhorne, Mazlin is a self-described astrophotographer, one of maybe 100 in the country, 200 or so in the world.

A dead man appears to walk through an Egyptian tomb in one of Sami Khella's recent paintings, while in the background, a female figure seems to squat, about to give birth. "Life continues," Khella says, interpreting the large oil painting hanging in his Gladwyne studio. The painting will be shown from Oct. 1 to 25 at Episcopal Academy in Merion, along with 30 other recent Khella works. Khella, 49, a diminutive man who emigrated from Egypt 40 years ago, is like a variation of the cat: Instead of nine lives, he has two, and they complement each other.

For a year, William Utermohlen hid his fears and tried to follow his normal routine, teaching art and painting in his London studio. But when his art historian wife, Patricia, finally got inside to see a canvas, she had an unpleasant revelation: It was blank. William Utermohlen had not produced a thing in all those trips to the studio. He was soon found to be suffering with the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. After his diagnosis in 1996 at the age of 61, Utermohlen, a South Philadelphia native who graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, started to paint with purpose once again.