To describe the previously unreported influence of Charcot and Cajal on mexican northeastern Neurology through the figure of Wenceslao López Albo.

Charcot’s anatomo-clinical method and Cajal’s neuronal doctrine helped shape neurology in XIX century and beyond. Although Cajal’s influence on mexican neurology has been traced, Charcot’s been seldom reported.

Historical narrative review.

Wenceslao López Albo (Santander,  Spain 1899 - Mexico City, 1944) studied Medicine in Valladolid and Madrid (1905-1912), and trained in neuropsychiatry under Cajal’s colleague Nicolás Achúcarro in the Histology Laboratory of Santiago Ramón y Cajal. After earning his doctorate (1914), he moves to Berlin, where he recieves training in neurosurgery from pioneers Krause, Foerster, and Oppenheim; but the war forces him back to Spain, to become director of a neurology-psychiatry outpatient clinic and mental hospital. He then consolidates his formation in Paris (1925-1927), under Pierre Marie, Claude and Guillain, disciples of Jean-Martin Charcot. On his return to Spain (1928), he becomes director of the first neuropsychiatry ward in Spain (Casa de Salud de Valdecilla) until the Civil War in forces him  to exile, passing through the south of France, then Barcelona and finally México, where he settles in Nuevo León, northeast México (1939). Here he is appointed as the city's first Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neuroanatomy (1939-1942), also becoming an active promoter of the righteous treatment of the mentally ill and fostering profesionalization of the field. In 1942 he leaves for México City to run the Neurosurgical service of Hospital Español, and become founder of the National Institute of Neuropsychiatry. He died after a renal procedure, aged 55.

Charcot and Cajal’s academic institutions were the catalyst in the formation of Wenceslao López Albo, who revolutionized neurology and psychiatry in northeast México.