The heroic age of neurophysiology.

Building on 19th- and early 20th-century conceptualizations--the synapse, the cellular nature of neuronal structure, the electrical basis of neural impulses--the heroic age, starting around World War I, set the stage for molecular definition of neuromuscular transmission. Without targeting specific diseases, the work took us to the verge of controlling some of humankind's cruelest dysfunctions.