Jiří Procháska was an ophthalmologist, physiologist, and anatomist but it is impossible to consider him a neurologist. Paradoxically, however, his contribution to the development of the emerging feld of neurology is undeniable. His theory of the refex, with its aferent and eferent branches and a decision-making center in between, became one of the foundations of clinical, experimental, and theoretical neurology in the century to follow.