Temple Fay

In his book, What to Do About Your Brain-injured Child, my father explains how he met Dr. Temple Fay and how they worked together. He also describes Fay’s death due to brain injury. This brilliant man gave much to the world and would have given much more if he had lived longer. He died in his mid-sixties. There are hundreds of thousands of people alive today because of his genius. 

Dr. Temple Fay

He conceived of the use of hypothermia for the human body. He built, with his own hands, the first machine to lower body temperature. When he did this, no one understood what he was doing. At first, in his hospital, the Temple University Medical School, he began to pack his patients in ice in order to lower their body temperature and slow their metabolism. In the process, he managed to destroy some of the mattresses. He was given a very bad time about this by the hospital administrator who had opposed the expense of previous innovations Fay had discovered and developed. In fact, the administrator was a constant thorn in his side whenever he was working to innovate or help his patients in non-standard ways. 

As mentioned before, my father was a war hero, and did not suffer fools. He had learned in the heat of battle what mattered in life and what did not. When it came to the parents of children with brain injury or the children themselves, he was like Santa Claus. Nonetheless, he was tough, as one would expect for an infantry full company commander who had fought his way from Belgium across Germany and into the Czech Republic. 

I remember as a small boy the presence of a huge and very important man. Even when I was a four-year old, whenever Dr. Fay was visiting the Institutes, it was a hallowed occasion. I could see that my father was totally dedicated to serving and pleasing Dr. Fay. All his attention was focused on doing exactly what Dr. Fay wished. 

The first title of my father’s organization was The Rehabilitation Center at Philadelphia. It was the first rehabilitation center in the state of Pennsylvania. When the state eventually decided to define the responsibilities of rehabilitation centers, they came to my father for his advice. Like anyone who had learned to lead and command men, my father led and commanded at the center he founded. The only exception was when Dr. Fay was on the grounds. There was no question who was in command then. It was my father who seriously served him out of great affection and respect. As a small child, all I understood was that when Dr. Fay was present, it was all hands on deck.
As a young child, I was given free rein of the center and I could go anywhere and do anything at any time. I considered this to be my right. From time to time, I may have annoyed the staff and I could have been quite haughty. However, the only exception was when Dr. Fay was present. Even I was expected to click my heels and behave. Otherwise, I was sent to confinement in our apartment.

Dr. Fay was a genius who was many decades ahead of his time. He specialized in many different fields of medicine. He was a neurosurgeon, neurologist, internal surgeon, internist, and maybe a psychiatrist as well. I have never heard of another physician specializing in so many areas. His reputation was wide and famous. He was highly published in many scientific journals. Some of his important studies are contained in the book, Temple Fay, MD: Progenitor of the Doman-Delacato Treatment Procedures, by James M. Wolf. Fay’s knowledge of brain function and his extensive experience with adults and children with brain injury laid the foundation for the field for Child Brain Development and The Doman Method. 

He created some of the very first programs which then laid the foundation for my father to create many more. Having studied how many animals developed mobility, and having observed how human beings developed in mobility, Fay understood that there were some ubiquitous patterns that are shared by many species. These are patterns such as homolateral and cross pattern. All human beings walk and run in a cross pattern. Mammals walk and run in a cross pattern. Many reptiles move in a cross pattern. Human babies crawl (on your belly like a soldier) and creep (on your hands and knees) in a cross pattern. In the operating room, Fay had correlated that adults and children injured in the mid-brain often cannot move in a cross pattern. 

He hypothesized that some of the brain cells dedicated to cross-pattern movement had been destroyed in the process of the individual becoming brain injured. By supplying tactile stimulation to the brain by appropriate frequency, intensity, and duration, could remaining healthy cells be reprogrammed in cross-pattern movement? This was the question he decided to answer in the 1930s. He developed a very straightforward procedure where therapists or family members would move the adult or child’s limbs to simulate cross-pattern crawling and creeping. This was the beginning of patterning. In the past 70 years, we have taught tens of thousands of parents how to pattern their children at home. Thousands of these children have learned how to crawl, creep, and eventually walk and run in a cross pattern. A homolateral pattern was added as a more primitive pattern. 

My father went on to develop many other kinds of patterning such as respiratory patterning. In recent years, others have understood Fay’s initial idea and now we have perhaps 20 different kinds of patterning, which we can teach to parents. Now, there are more significant results as we can introduce individual patterns based on children’s individual needs. 

All open-heart surgery, transplant surgery, and many advanced forms of brain surgery are all dependent upon hypothermia. Hundreds of thousands of people are alive and well as a result of Fay’s brilliance. He was so far ahead of his time. He was never recognized as he should have been. Many have said that he should have received the Nobel Prize. 

His work in hypothermia was not understood and he was criticized. Instead of awarding his genius, Temple University Medical School accepted his resignation a few days before they would have fired him anyway. The administrator who had made his work so difficult died suddenly and unexpectedly. An autopsy was performed, and they shockingly found that her cortex (by far the largest part of the brain) was tiny. Fay’s love and respect for the brain was great. Instead of proclaiming that the woman had the brain of an idiot, Fay marveled at how she had managed to run very effectively, the medical school and hospital despite having a very small cortex. 

As a result of Fay’s experience, when my father founded The Rehabilitation Center at Philadelphia, he determined that the clinicians would direct and grow the organization 100%. Administrators would work for and under the clinicians. The clinicians would make certain that the organization’s purposes and goals were 100% for the benefit of the children and adults with brain injury. This law has been maintained for more than 70 years. As long as I am alive, I promise not to move away from this all important principal. 

In What to Do About Your Brain Injured Child, my father explained how Fay had a stroke. He went to visit Fay whose language was limited by the stroke. Fay took a piece of paper and drew a diagram of the brain pinpointing exactly where his stroke had occurred. He was a teacher through and through. He never missed the opportunity to enlighten or teach anyone when it came to brain injury and brain growth and development. It is ironic that a man who had saved so many lives in the operating room and through new therapies should be brought down by brain injury. This irony has always struck me. It became even more poignant with my father.

Glenn Doman

My father had a superb memory and could explain details of exactly when, where, and how he had been in battle in Europe. In his late eighties, he began to lose his short-term memory. I went with him to see a prominent neurologist. After a battery of brain scans, he determined that my father had had ministrokes throughout the brain. This was the beginning of dementia. Eventually, in his nineties, my father would forget that he had just eaten lunch and asked how soon he would be having lunch. Amazing, I thought, that he was being brought down by a brain injury, just like his mentor Fay. The dementia didn’t permit him to diagnose his brain injury so precisely as Fay had done. Yet, even at his worst, he could remember scores of events and songs from his boyhood 85 years before. He passed a vocabulary test indicating the sophistication and quantity of his vocabulary ranked at the highest levels of human beings.  

In every introductory lecture for every parent of the 70,000 parents we have taught, my father, with great reverence and respect, always taught that Dr. Fay laid the foundation for our work. This way, for generations, the directors and clinicians trained in The Doman Method have kept Dr. Temple Fay alive. We would not be where we are today and the thousands of people with brain injury who have been a part of our work, would not have had the results they have had if it wasn’t for the great Dr. Fay.

Written by: Douglas Doman