On the wave of the furore over the haphazard approach to academic prom
otion in Italy and the role of published work in it, our analysis clea
rs the role of the neurological publications in the three years 1989-1
991. The data analysis, carried out by consulting on-line data bank an
d comparing the Italian production with that one of two sampled countr
ies (France and Germany), shows that in the field of clinical neurosci
ence, this criticism is not in order.