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The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Nonfiction (2014)From the author of the bestseller The Disappearing Spoon, tales of the brain and the history of neuroscience.
Early studies of the human brain used a simple wait for misfortune to strike — strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents — and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims’ personalities. Parents suddenly couldn’t recognize their own children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars. Some people couldn’t speak but could still sing.
In The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean travels through time with stories of neurological phantom limbs, Siamese twin brains, viruses that eat patients’ memories, blind people who see through their tongues. He weaves these narratives together with prose that makes the pages fly by, to create a story of discovery that reaches back to the 1500s and the high-profile jousting accident that inspired this book’s title.* With the lucid, masterful explanations and razor-sharp wit his fans have come to expect, Kean explores the brain’s secret passageways and recounts the forgotten tales of the ordinary people whose struggles, resilience, and deep humanity made neuroscience possible.
*”The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons” refers to the case of French king Henri II, who in 1559 was lanced through the skull during a joust, resulting in one of the most significant cases in neuroscience history. For hundreds of years scientists have gained important lessons from traumatic accidents and illnesses, and such misfortunes still represent their greatest resource for discovery.
Early studies of the human brain used a simple wait for misfortune to strike — strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents — and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims’ personalities. Parents suddenly couldn’t recognize their own children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars. Some people couldn’t speak but could still sing.
In The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean travels through time with stories of neurological phantom limbs, Siamese twin brains, viruses that eat patients’ memories, blind people who see through their tongues. He weaves these narratives together with prose that makes the pages fly by, to create a story of discovery that reaches back to the 1500s and the high-profile jousting accident that inspired this book’s title.* With the lucid, masterful explanations and razor-sharp wit his fans have come to expect, Kean explores the brain’s secret passageways and recounts the forgotten tales of the ordinary people whose struggles, resilience, and deep humanity made neuroscience possible.
*”The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons” refers to the case of French king Henri II, who in 1559 was lanced through the skull during a joust, resulting in one of the most significant cases in neuroscience history. For hundreds of years scientists have gained important lessons from traumatic accidents and illnesses, and such misfortunes still represent their greatest resource for discovery.
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 6, 2014
1324 people are currently reading
31681 people want to read
About the author
Sam Kean
17 books1,914 followersSam Kean is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books. He spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now lives in Washington, D.C. His stories have appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, among other places, and his work has been featured on NPR’s “Radiolab”, “Science Friday”, and “All Things Considered.” The Bastard Brigade was a “Science Friday” book of the year, while Caesar’s Last Breath was the Guardian science book of the year.
from SamKean.com
(Un)Official Bio:
Sam Kean gets called Sean at least once a month. He grew up in South Dakota, which means more to him than it probably should. He’s a fast reader but a very slow eater. He went to college in Minnesota and studied physics and English. At night, he sometimes comes down with something called “sleep paralysis,” which is the opposite of sleepwalking. One of his books appeared in an iPhone commercial once. Right now, he lives in Washington, D.C., where he earned a master’s degree in library science that he will probably never use. He feels very strongly that open-faced sandwiches are superior to regular ones.
from SamKean.com
(Un)Official Bio:
Sam Kean gets called Sean at least once a month. He grew up in South Dakota, which means more to him than it probably should. He’s a fast reader but a very slow eater. He went to college in Minnesota and studied physics and English. At night, he sometimes comes down with something called “sleep paralysis,” which is the opposite of sleepwalking. One of his books appeared in an iPhone commercial once. Right now, he lives in Washington, D.C., where he earned a master’s degree in library science that he will probably never use. He feels very strongly that open-faced sandwiches are superior to regular ones.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,313 reviews
December 5, 2016
I really like books on neurology. I like to know how our our behaviour changes when something goes wrong. I am a lot less interested in the normal working of the brain. I just can't get excited about glia, synapses, astrocytes and all the other bits that are of interest to neurologists. It is the telling of anecdotes about people that illustrate disorders, malfunctioning and occasionally extraordinary abilities and talents that I relate to.
I recently read Oliver Sacks Hallucinations and VS Ramchandran's Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind and I was hoping for something more in that vein. But there were too few anecdotes and too much glia in the book for me.
I didn't like the writing. I am not keen on slang being used to entertain, it just strikes me as loose writing. The chapters I read had mostly centuries-old anecdotes - Philippe of France - and were told in a very loose way. It didn't engage me. Then on to the dreaded glia and the author's absolute delight in the structure of the brain that I do not share.
I would say I'd given this book up as it never engaged me. But it has an average of over 4, so perhaps I'll just put it to one side for now and come back to it.... sometime soon.
I never know what to do with books I don't like that everyone else does. Whether to persist with them or just give them up? I always feel that I am missing something crucial. What about you?
I recently read Oliver Sacks Hallucinations and VS Ramchandran's Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind and I was hoping for something more in that vein. But there were too few anecdotes and too much glia in the book for me.
I didn't like the writing. I am not keen on slang being used to entertain, it just strikes me as loose writing. The chapters I read had mostly centuries-old anecdotes - Philippe of France - and were told in a very loose way. It didn't engage me. Then on to the dreaded glia and the author's absolute delight in the structure of the brain that I do not share.
I would say I'd given this book up as it never engaged me. But it has an average of over 4, so perhaps I'll just put it to one side for now and come back to it.... sometime soon.
I never know what to do with books I don't like that everyone else does. Whether to persist with them or just give them up? I always feel that I am missing something crucial. What about you?
September 9, 2016
Brains are funny, and fascinating, things. Sam Kean is a funny, and fascinating, writer. Sam Kean writing about brains leads, perhaps unsurprisingly, to a fascinating (and sometimes funny) book.
Part of the reason brains are so fascinating is that they operate with such prodigious levels of speed and processing power that even the most powerful supercomputers can’t replicate everything that they do (they also look kind of like something Scots would boil in a sheep’s stomach with neeps and tatties, so they’ve got that going for them). And, yet, we still don’t fully understand how the brain works, and much of what we do know is the result not of studying fully functioning, normal brains, but, rather, examining those unfortunate individuals whose brains have been damaged as a result of traumatic injury or illness, resulting in bizarre behavior ranging from extreme personality changes to an inability to identify vegetables—and only vegetables (this latter brain deficiency seems particularly useful to me, actually, as it would make it much easier to continue my lifelong quest to consume as few vegetables as possible).
Kean’s narrative highlights some of the most famous damaged brains in history, individuals whose conditions facilitated leaps and bounds forward in neuroscience and in helping us not only understand how our brains work, but how to treat those whose brains maybe don’t work quite right.
A word of warning: it can be terrifying to read about people whose faculties have been so irrevocably altered by brain trauma that they can no longer recognize loved ones or become convinced that every single person on the planet has been replaced by clones (due to the fact that they can no longer recognize the same person if they look in any way different from the last time they saw them—a change out outfit, a haircut, even an eyebrow plucking can throw them off), and there’s a distinct chance that you will want to walk around wearing a brain-protecting helmet at all times afterward (or maybe that’s just me). I now live in fear of getting a railroad spike through my brain and going all Phineas Gage on everyone.
That said, this book will delight pop science aficionados (or fans of Kean’s other works) and leave you even more awed that the same organ responsible for my fixation with Saved by the Bell (which, in and of itself, may be a form of brain damage) can perform such an immense array of complicated tasks and, in certain circumstances, rewire itself to keep functioning even after sustaining trauma.
We’ll call this a strong 4.5 stars.
(Personally, I look forward to seeing…or, well, I guess not seeing…what happens when scientists get their hands on my brain. It will either advance neuroscience by leaps and bounds or set us back a thousand years. My money is on the latter.)
Part of the reason brains are so fascinating is that they operate with such prodigious levels of speed and processing power that even the most powerful supercomputers can’t replicate everything that they do (they also look kind of like something Scots would boil in a sheep’s stomach with neeps and tatties, so they’ve got that going for them). And, yet, we still don’t fully understand how the brain works, and much of what we do know is the result not of studying fully functioning, normal brains, but, rather, examining those unfortunate individuals whose brains have been damaged as a result of traumatic injury or illness, resulting in bizarre behavior ranging from extreme personality changes to an inability to identify vegetables—and only vegetables (this latter brain deficiency seems particularly useful to me, actually, as it would make it much easier to continue my lifelong quest to consume as few vegetables as possible).
Kean’s narrative highlights some of the most famous damaged brains in history, individuals whose conditions facilitated leaps and bounds forward in neuroscience and in helping us not only understand how our brains work, but how to treat those whose brains maybe don’t work quite right.
A word of warning: it can be terrifying to read about people whose faculties have been so irrevocably altered by brain trauma that they can no longer recognize loved ones or become convinced that every single person on the planet has been replaced by clones (due to the fact that they can no longer recognize the same person if they look in any way different from the last time they saw them—a change out outfit, a haircut, even an eyebrow plucking can throw them off), and there’s a distinct chance that you will want to walk around wearing a brain-protecting helmet at all times afterward (or maybe that’s just me). I now live in fear of getting a railroad spike through my brain and going all Phineas Gage on everyone.
That said, this book will delight pop science aficionados (or fans of Kean’s other works) and leave you even more awed that the same organ responsible for my fixation with Saved by the Bell (which, in and of itself, may be a form of brain damage) can perform such an immense array of complicated tasks and, in certain circumstances, rewire itself to keep functioning even after sustaining trauma.
We’ll call this a strong 4.5 stars.
(Personally, I look forward to seeing…or, well, I guess not seeing…what happens when scientists get their hands on my brain. It will either advance neuroscience by leaps and bounds or set us back a thousand years. My money is on the latter.)
May 13, 2019
This is the fourth book I've read by Sam Kean, and they have all been excellent. This fascinating book describes the history of our understanding of the brain in the last couple hundred years. It is not a comprehensive treatment, but instead it is an in-depth look at a number of episodes that gave quantum jumps into our understanding. Often, these episodes are centered on some type of brain injury or illness.
One of the central questions about the brain is whether or not thought processes are decentralized or localized. That is to say, the question is whether each type of thought process is localized in a specific area of the brain, or spread throughout the brain. Nowadays, we know that specific areas of the brain are responsible for specific thought processes, but it took a long time for sufficient evidence to pin this down with proof. The best proof was to have a specific area of the brain damaged by illness or injury, and to observe what types of thought processes were affected.
One of the most famous of these was the case of the rail supervisor Phineas Gage, who had a metal bar run through his skull and brain. Now, I have read about this case numerous times, in many different books. But Sam Kean's description is more detailed than any other that I have read.
Interestingly, Kean takes the reader through the history of two presidential assassinations; McKinley and Garfield. In both cases, the assassins were normal men with no violence in their past. But over a short period of time, the assassins became mad, and autopsies gave physical evidence (macroscopic in one case, microscopic in the other) that the assassins had damage to their brains.
The book is essentially a collection of anecdotal episodes. This made it very engaging, without going too deeply into jargon and technical detail. I was captivated by the description of the rare Capgras syndrome. A victim of this syndrome can see and recognize family members. But, as a result of two separate lesions in two different areas of the brain, the victim believes that despite recognizing the appearance of people he sees, he believes irrationally that they are not his family members, but are imposters!
I didn't read this book; I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Henry Leyva. His narration is very good, and helped me to enjoy the book.
One of the central questions about the brain is whether or not thought processes are decentralized or localized. That is to say, the question is whether each type of thought process is localized in a specific area of the brain, or spread throughout the brain. Nowadays, we know that specific areas of the brain are responsible for specific thought processes, but it took a long time for sufficient evidence to pin this down with proof. The best proof was to have a specific area of the brain damaged by illness or injury, and to observe what types of thought processes were affected.
One of the most famous of these was the case of the rail supervisor Phineas Gage, who had a metal bar run through his skull and brain. Now, I have read about this case numerous times, in many different books. But Sam Kean's description is more detailed than any other that I have read.
Interestingly, Kean takes the reader through the history of two presidential assassinations; McKinley and Garfield. In both cases, the assassins were normal men with no violence in their past. But over a short period of time, the assassins became mad, and autopsies gave physical evidence (macroscopic in one case, microscopic in the other) that the assassins had damage to their brains.
The book is essentially a collection of anecdotal episodes. This made it very engaging, without going too deeply into jargon and technical detail. I was captivated by the description of the rare Capgras syndrome. A victim of this syndrome can see and recognize family members. But, as a result of two separate lesions in two different areas of the brain, the victim believes that despite recognizing the appearance of people he sees, he believes irrationally that they are not his family members, but are imposters!
I didn't read this book; I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Henry Leyva. His narration is very good, and helped me to enjoy the book.
February 6, 2020
Kean’s third popular science book tells fascinating stories about how the brain works. “Tiny flaws in the brain [have] strange but telling consequences all the time,” he writes. King Henri II incurred brain injuries in jousting accidents and suffered headaches and seizures. The rival neurosurgeons of the title examined him but found no skull fractures. Yet Henri died of an intracranial hemorrhage – proof the brain could be damaged even if the skull stayed intact.
The book is crammed full of such intriguing anecdotes. Kean profiles presidential assassins with brain decay, a blind Royal Navy lieutenant who travelled the world using his cane for echolocation, and an American Civil War veteran whose story sparked research on phantom limbs. Seemingly minute brain changes can alter personality or cause epilepsy, amnesia, dwarfism, degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or kuru (once common among Papuan cannibals), and all manner of delusional behavior.
Kean systematically chronicles how neuroscience came to understand which parts of the brain control which functions. His clear, humorous prose is perfectly pitched, with simple diagrams, photographs and rebuses enlivening each chapter.
As a light-hearted collection of scientific yarns, this is very much in the vein of Bill Bryson or Oliver Sacks. However, there is a serious message here, too: the brain’s ability to repair itself is reassuring, but memory and identity prove problematic: “Our memories actually sculpt, rework and...distort” events, Kean cautions. If the brain is so changeable, does the self remain the same?
Enthralling, thought-provoking reading.
Related reads:
One Hundred Names for Love by Diane Ackerman
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
The book is crammed full of such intriguing anecdotes. Kean profiles presidential assassins with brain decay, a blind Royal Navy lieutenant who travelled the world using his cane for echolocation, and an American Civil War veteran whose story sparked research on phantom limbs. Seemingly minute brain changes can alter personality or cause epilepsy, amnesia, dwarfism, degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or kuru (once common among Papuan cannibals), and all manner of delusional behavior.
Kean systematically chronicles how neuroscience came to understand which parts of the brain control which functions. His clear, humorous prose is perfectly pitched, with simple diagrams, photographs and rebuses enlivening each chapter.
As a light-hearted collection of scientific yarns, this is very much in the vein of Bill Bryson or Oliver Sacks. However, there is a serious message here, too: the brain’s ability to repair itself is reassuring, but memory and identity prove problematic: “Our memories actually sculpt, rework and...distort” events, Kean cautions. If the brain is so changeable, does the self remain the same?
Enthralling, thought-provoking reading.
Related reads:
One Hundred Names for Love by Diane Ackerman
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
January 1, 2015
This book is a delightful tour around the brain with a knowledgeable and gently humorous guide who never loses focus but is quite prepared to be diverted if there is a chance to enrich the story.
The dueling neurosurgeons of the title represent both Paré and Vesalius (the founder of modern anatomy) who were called upon in 1559 to treat King Henri of France who, while jousting, had suffered a penetrating wound to his eye and brain. Thankfully we have now in pathology more sophisticated tests for examining tissue than what was used by the royal surgeon Paré: “He developed tests to distinguish between fat… and oozing bits of fatty brain tissue (fat floats on water, brain sinks; fat liquefies in a frying pan, brain shrivels.)” And we have more sophisticated treatments now too, than the potion of rhubarb and charred Egyptian mummy force-fed to poor Henri. The famous surgeons didn’t manage to save the King, and together they performed his autopsy; the briefly described procedure is quite similar to modern day technique. They did deviate from the usual procedure in that this time they didn’t lop the head off to remove the brain. We don’t do that either nowadays in the autopsy suite.
The book is populated with famous characters from the annals of medical history. They’re all here: Vesalius, Cajal, Golgi, Broca, HM, Penfield, etc., but they are not dusty relics in a history museum. They come alive because Kean describes not just their feats but how their actions propelled forward various concepts and understandings of anatomy and medicine, based on case histories that are vividly and engagingly described. While his tone is frequently light and humorous, he nonetheless stays within bounds and always respects the humanity of the patients.
The evolution of medical thinking is illustrated with these fascinating stories. He has achieved the ideal pop science narrative that seamlessly marries case histories to fundamental neurological concepts.
(Received as ARC via NetGalley from Little, Brown & Co.)
The dueling neurosurgeons of the title represent both Paré and Vesalius (the founder of modern anatomy) who were called upon in 1559 to treat King Henri of France who, while jousting, had suffered a penetrating wound to his eye and brain. Thankfully we have now in pathology more sophisticated tests for examining tissue than what was used by the royal surgeon Paré: “He developed tests to distinguish between fat… and oozing bits of fatty brain tissue (fat floats on water, brain sinks; fat liquefies in a frying pan, brain shrivels.)” And we have more sophisticated treatments now too, than the potion of rhubarb and charred Egyptian mummy force-fed to poor Henri. The famous surgeons didn’t manage to save the King, and together they performed his autopsy; the briefly described procedure is quite similar to modern day technique. They did deviate from the usual procedure in that this time they didn’t lop the head off to remove the brain. We don’t do that either nowadays in the autopsy suite.
The book is populated with famous characters from the annals of medical history. They’re all here: Vesalius, Cajal, Golgi, Broca, HM, Penfield, etc., but they are not dusty relics in a history museum. They come alive because Kean describes not just their feats but how their actions propelled forward various concepts and understandings of anatomy and medicine, based on case histories that are vividly and engagingly described. While his tone is frequently light and humorous, he nonetheless stays within bounds and always respects the humanity of the patients.
The evolution of medical thinking is illustrated with these fascinating stories. He has achieved the ideal pop science narrative that seamlessly marries case histories to fundamental neurological concepts.
(Received as ARC via NetGalley from Little, Brown & Co.)
August 4, 2024
The title makes me think of a biography of neurosurgeons. In fact, the book is more than that. It is a history of neurology, neurosurgery and neurosurgeons, and our understanding of the brain and mind, all told in stories. Sam Kean is not a neuroscientist or doctor, but he is a good science writer. I find the book an engaging read.
It starts with a story of Henry II, King of France, who was wounded in the head during a jousting match, and the two surgeons, Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, who tried but failed to save him. Kean described Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius as two giants in the beginning of neurosurgery.
The book is organized chronically, but also from the so-called physical aspect of the brain (i.e. anatomy, cells, senses, brain and body, etc..) to the higher, mental aspect of the mind (i.e. beliefs, delusions, and consciousness).
Here is an incomplete list of early neurosurgeons covered in the book: Paul Broca, Santiago R.Y. Cajal, Silas Weir Mitchell, Hermann Schloffer, and Harvey Cushing.
The history of neuroscience and psychology in the United States in the first half of the 20th century was linked to eugenics and racism, of which the author gave a brief mention but didn’t dive into.
Kean spent an entire chapter on Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, an American doctor who discovered the cause of Kuru Disease and the misfolded protein, which won him a Nobel Prize in 1976. Gajdusek was also a chronic pedophile who took advantage of the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea, whom he was supposed to help. He sexually abused numerous young boys of the island and bragged about it in his books. When finally arrested, he served only 8 months in jail. Such a disturbing chapter to read.
As a reader of popular medical science books, I am happy to meet yet again Phineas Gage, H.M. and other famous patients in the history of neuroscience. Kean gave a lot of details about Gage’s life. He questioned how much personality change Gage had experienced. The story of Clive Wearing, a musician and conductor who developed amnesia in 1985 after a herpes virus infection in the brain, is truly heartbreaking.
In Part Four: Beliefs and Delusions - 9. Slights of the Mind, Kean described an experiment first conducted by scientist Benjamin Libet that disproved freewill in the 1980s. Similar experiments had been conducted subsequently with the same results. However, in recent years, the validity of Libet’s experiment has been questioned (here, and here). Perhaps if Sam Kean ever revised this book, he would include the recent update.
It starts with a story of Henry II, King of France, who was wounded in the head during a jousting match, and the two surgeons, Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, who tried but failed to save him. Kean described Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius as two giants in the beginning of neurosurgery.
The book is organized chronically, but also from the so-called physical aspect of the brain (i.e. anatomy, cells, senses, brain and body, etc..) to the higher, mental aspect of the mind (i.e. beliefs, delusions, and consciousness).
Here is an incomplete list of early neurosurgeons covered in the book: Paul Broca, Santiago R.Y. Cajal, Silas Weir Mitchell, Hermann Schloffer, and Harvey Cushing.
The history of neuroscience and psychology in the United States in the first half of the 20th century was linked to eugenics and racism, of which the author gave a brief mention but didn’t dive into.
Kean spent an entire chapter on Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, an American doctor who discovered the cause of Kuru Disease and the misfolded protein, which won him a Nobel Prize in 1976. Gajdusek was also a chronic pedophile who took advantage of the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea, whom he was supposed to help. He sexually abused numerous young boys of the island and bragged about it in his books. When finally arrested, he served only 8 months in jail. Such a disturbing chapter to read.
As a reader of popular medical science books, I am happy to meet yet again Phineas Gage, H.M. and other famous patients in the history of neuroscience. Kean gave a lot of details about Gage’s life. He questioned how much personality change Gage had experienced. The story of Clive Wearing, a musician and conductor who developed amnesia in 1985 after a herpes virus infection in the brain, is truly heartbreaking.
In Part Four: Beliefs and Delusions - 9. Slights of the Mind, Kean described an experiment first conducted by scientist Benjamin Libet that disproved freewill in the 1980s. Similar experiments had been conducted subsequently with the same results. However, in recent years, the validity of Libet’s experiment has been questioned (here, and here). Perhaps if Sam Kean ever revised this book, he would include the recent update.
November 11, 2020
This book is structured by alternating anecdotes and then science, anecdotes then science, etc. It helped break up the technical info so it wasn't so overwhelming for a reader like me. And I love a good science story.
The brain is a fascinating thing. How did Phineas Gage survive a metal rod through his brain? It bypassed vital regions and flew out the other side. The author doesn't want us to think the brain is totally localized for certain functions - we use our entire brain in subtle ways for our actions. There may be spots that are specialized for sight but we need the whole thing to "really" see. Phineas Gage survived and had a somewhat normal life but as his contemporaries said, he never again was Phineas Gage.
The brain is a fascinating thing. How did Phineas Gage survive a metal rod through his brain? It bypassed vital regions and flew out the other side. The author doesn't want us to think the brain is totally localized for certain functions - we use our entire brain in subtle ways for our actions. There may be spots that are specialized for sight but we need the whole thing to "really" see. Phineas Gage survived and had a somewhat normal life but as his contemporaries said, he never again was Phineas Gage.
June 2, 2014
The title suggests an anecdotal romp propelled by Kean's chirpy narrative voice. However, these props are actually designed to lure the reader's entry into a much more serious domain. Kean's book is arranged as a survey of neuroanatomy. Five broad sections are broken up into individual chapters that each highlight a particular structure: Neurons, the occipital lobe (a key element in visual recognition), the cerebellum (part of a system that modulates motor control), the corpus callosum (the connection between left and right brain hemispheres), and the hippocampus (a critical componenet of memory storage). Some of his descriptions are unforgettable. Explaining the relationship between the motor cortex and the sensory cortex he writes: “To execute a complicated movement, the motor areas also need feedback from the muscles at each stage, to ensure that their commands have been carried out properly. Much of this feedback is provided by the somatosensory cortex, the brain's tactile center. You can think about the somatosensory cortex as the motor cortex's twin. Like the motor cortex, it's a thin, vertical strip; they in fact lie right next to each other in the brain, like parallel pieces of bacon. Both strips are also organized the same way, body part by body part; that is, each strip has a hand region, a leg region, a lips region, and so on. In effect, then, the motor cortex and somatosensory cortex each contain a 'body map,' with each body part having its own territory. (p.145) Thanks – I guess, Sam. I'll never be able to think of bacon in the the same way now!
The brain's localized areas are identified, not to introduce a new phrenology, but to identify the components of complex feedback circuits. Kean's explanation of visual recognition is particularly successful in demonstrating this point (Chapter 4). The tour starts in the occipital lobe. Specific neurons are excited by perceiving lines and their specific orientation: “...the brain determinedly breaks … form down into tiny line segments.” (p.111) An even greater array of neurons are excited when they detect movement. The evolutionary advantage of such a faculty is obvious. David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel shared the Nobel prize in 1981 for their discovery of this visual mechanism. But this is only the beginning. How do we recognize specific objects from this sensory data? How do we remember the categories these objects fall into (e.g. food vs. non-food)? More specifically, how do we recognize faces? Finally, how do we match specific entities to emotional responses? Kean outlines the theory that two major circuits for visual data processing exist. The first circuit is a basic identifier: Where is the object located and how fast is it moving? The circuit includes flow from the occipital lobes to the parietal lobes. The second circuit flows from the occipital lobes to the temporal lobes where information about memory and recognition are transmitted. As for identifying faces, there is an area called the fusiform facial area dedicated specifically to this task.
Kean illustrates his examples with cases of brain damage and the resulting inferences. We learn about C.K. who suffered damage that made him unable to distinguish between food and non-food. Despite superior scores on face recognition tests, he was also unable to recognize faces presented to him upside down. We learn about Elliott who, after prefrontal lobe surgery, was unable to make decisions, despite the fact that his memory, language and learning skills were unimpaired. Antonio Damasio believes the key to Elliot's indecision was the impairment of limbic system connections that link emotion to decision making. The most poignant example is that of Clive Wearing, who suffered loss of even short-term memory, which Kean characterizes as the loss of moment-to-moment consciousness. Again, scientists surmise some sort of disruption of the limbic system. They just don't know what.
Kean's historical approach serves to highlight the difficulty of neuroscience exploration. Much of this knowledge was gained through means that would be deemed unethical. Neurosurgery was dangerous, and surgeons often performed procedures with little hope for a positive outcome. It also calls into question the idea of “informed consent.” If a patient has neurological damage, how “informed” can his consent be? The animal experiments Kean describes are frequently revolting.
I have read several previous books that have touched on neuroscience. I found Kean's book a pleasant combination of familiar material and an easily digestible introduction to broad neurocircuits. Kean obviously hopes the casual reader will find his curiosity piqued and will explore more specialized works on the workings of the brain. My personal preference is to start with the small and specific. Readers of books like Lisa Genova's LEFT NEGLECTED, or Jill Bolte Taylor's MY STROKE OF INSIGHT, might find this book of special interest as a logical steppingstone.
The brain's localized areas are identified, not to introduce a new phrenology, but to identify the components of complex feedback circuits. Kean's explanation of visual recognition is particularly successful in demonstrating this point (Chapter 4). The tour starts in the occipital lobe. Specific neurons are excited by perceiving lines and their specific orientation: “...the brain determinedly breaks … form down into tiny line segments.” (p.111) An even greater array of neurons are excited when they detect movement. The evolutionary advantage of such a faculty is obvious. David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel shared the Nobel prize in 1981 for their discovery of this visual mechanism. But this is only the beginning. How do we recognize specific objects from this sensory data? How do we remember the categories these objects fall into (e.g. food vs. non-food)? More specifically, how do we recognize faces? Finally, how do we match specific entities to emotional responses? Kean outlines the theory that two major circuits for visual data processing exist. The first circuit is a basic identifier: Where is the object located and how fast is it moving? The circuit includes flow from the occipital lobes to the parietal lobes. The second circuit flows from the occipital lobes to the temporal lobes where information about memory and recognition are transmitted. As for identifying faces, there is an area called the fusiform facial area dedicated specifically to this task.
Kean illustrates his examples with cases of brain damage and the resulting inferences. We learn about C.K. who suffered damage that made him unable to distinguish between food and non-food. Despite superior scores on face recognition tests, he was also unable to recognize faces presented to him upside down. We learn about Elliott who, after prefrontal lobe surgery, was unable to make decisions, despite the fact that his memory, language and learning skills were unimpaired. Antonio Damasio believes the key to Elliot's indecision was the impairment of limbic system connections that link emotion to decision making. The most poignant example is that of Clive Wearing, who suffered loss of even short-term memory, which Kean characterizes as the loss of moment-to-moment consciousness. Again, scientists surmise some sort of disruption of the limbic system. They just don't know what.
Kean's historical approach serves to highlight the difficulty of neuroscience exploration. Much of this knowledge was gained through means that would be deemed unethical. Neurosurgery was dangerous, and surgeons often performed procedures with little hope for a positive outcome. It also calls into question the idea of “informed consent.” If a patient has neurological damage, how “informed” can his consent be? The animal experiments Kean describes are frequently revolting.
I have read several previous books that have touched on neuroscience. I found Kean's book a pleasant combination of familiar material and an easily digestible introduction to broad neurocircuits. Kean obviously hopes the casual reader will find his curiosity piqued and will explore more specialized works on the workings of the brain. My personal preference is to start with the small and specific. Readers of books like Lisa Genova's LEFT NEGLECTED, or Jill Bolte Taylor's MY STROKE OF INSIGHT, might find this book of special interest as a logical steppingstone.
March 24, 2015
I’d been eyeing this for a while, but Robert really convinced me to read it. I was worried with that title it would be a bit too silly, but I shouldn’t have worried. The tone can be light, and there are a few jokes cracked and some wry asides, but it’s more scientific than the title suggests, while still being accessible to the general reader. A lot of the cases it discusses were ones I was already aware of, but it added depth and colour. I really need to get round to reading Permanent Present Tense, a book about “H.M.”, or Henry Molaison, which I’ve already got, and I’m curious about Clive Wearing’s wife’s book about his condition (though this youtube video gives you some idea).
It also added information about scientists who’ve studied the brain, though I kept muddling up my timelines and getting confused about who discovered what and when, and how it impacted everyone else. It’s arranged more thematically than chronologically, although there is a certain chronological element too (throughout the book, it moves toward more recent incidents and discoveries), so the timeline doesn’t matter incredibly.
Altogether, I found it a good primer on the science and history of neurology, for a casual reader, and the notes and such at the back offer plenty more places to dig for interesting information. (Where the library has any of these rather specialised books might be another matter, alas.) Best of all, it never feels like a lecture: the tone is warm, and the author finds the best in people and theories rather than mocking previous insights that turned out to be wrong. Which is wise, since we don’t understand the brain yet, and all of this may yet be overturned again…
Originally posted on my blog here!
It also added information about scientists who’ve studied the brain, though I kept muddling up my timelines and getting confused about who discovered what and when, and how it impacted everyone else. It’s arranged more thematically than chronologically, although there is a certain chronological element too (throughout the book, it moves toward more recent incidents and discoveries), so the timeline doesn’t matter incredibly.
Altogether, I found it a good primer on the science and history of neurology, for a casual reader, and the notes and such at the back offer plenty more places to dig for interesting information. (Where the library has any of these rather specialised books might be another matter, alas.) Best of all, it never feels like a lecture: the tone is warm, and the author finds the best in people and theories rather than mocking previous insights that turned out to be wrong. Which is wise, since we don’t understand the brain yet, and all of this may yet be overturned again…
Originally posted on my blog here!
April 17, 2025
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. This isn't my usual genre at all, but my best friend shared some of the stories and it just sounded too interesting to miss. I dipped into it, reading a chapter or two between other books.
The author uses real-life cases as the backdrop to each chapter, giving the reader a vivid snapshot of the time period and taking us on a fascinating journey from the earliest pioneers of neuroscience to our current understanding of the brain. Included are individuals who experienced synaesthesia, phantom limbs, epilepsy, delusions, and amnesia.
What I loved most is that it reads like a collection of compelling stories rather than medical science. The writing is excellent – engaging, witty, and full of empathy and wonder.
The author uses real-life cases as the backdrop to each chapter, giving the reader a vivid snapshot of the time period and taking us on a fascinating journey from the earliest pioneers of neuroscience to our current understanding of the brain. Included are individuals who experienced synaesthesia, phantom limbs, epilepsy, delusions, and amnesia.
What I loved most is that it reads like a collection of compelling stories rather than medical science. The writing is excellent – engaging, witty, and full of empathy and wonder.
February 16, 2016
I loved this.
Like The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, Sam Kean uses anecdotes and humor to share scientific discoveries that shaped our knowledge of how things work. This book was longer and more detailed, but also more relevant to my field since the focus was on neuroscience.
Though lighter in tone than the works of Oliver Sacks, this book similarly contained many fascinating tales of neurological damage and its idiosyncratic effects. It also asked a number of profound questions about the age-old mind/body problem and whether we truly have free choice given increasing evidence that our personalities and practically everything we do can be located in our neurology.
While it helps to have a preexisting interest in the topic, I'm betting that even people who don't think they're interested in the brain could get into this book (hey, it happened to me with the periodic table when I read The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements).
Like The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, Sam Kean uses anecdotes and humor to share scientific discoveries that shaped our knowledge of how things work. This book was longer and more detailed, but also more relevant to my field since the focus was on neuroscience.
Though lighter in tone than the works of Oliver Sacks, this book similarly contained many fascinating tales of neurological damage and its idiosyncratic effects. It also asked a number of profound questions about the age-old mind/body problem and whether we truly have free choice given increasing evidence that our personalities and practically everything we do can be located in our neurology.
While it helps to have a preexisting interest in the topic, I'm betting that even people who don't think they're interested in the brain could get into this book (hey, it happened to me with the periodic table when I read The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements).
September 29, 2014
The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons
This book interests me a lot. I am very interested in most things science, especially neuroscience. I read the book The Female Brain, and my mom was talking to a friend about that. Her friend gave me this book to read.
I'm so glad she did. I love reading things that have to do with science and that have random little fun facts that you can tell to your friends or family. It had a lot of short stories about a ton of cases and some of them are really strange. One is about blind people that learned to see through sensors attached to their tongues. Another was about a traveler that visited hundreds of different places, explored new countries and climbed mountains. He was also blind. He used a cane for echolocation and made his way around the world. He walked, in total, over the distance from the earth to the moon.
Stories like these are my favorite, because they should be impossible. A blind man exploring the world? No way. People seeing through their tongues? Yeah right, like they have eyes there. People whose eyes skip over stationary things completely, but only register moving objects? Completely impossible, you say. But no, it's all here, right here in this book that you should have in your hands. I would recommend this to everyone that likes reading. You could hate anything related to neuroscience but love this book and hear yourself talking about it every chance you get.
This book interests me a lot. I am very interested in most things science, especially neuroscience. I read the book The Female Brain, and my mom was talking to a friend about that. Her friend gave me this book to read.
I'm so glad she did. I love reading things that have to do with science and that have random little fun facts that you can tell to your friends or family. It had a lot of short stories about a ton of cases and some of them are really strange. One is about blind people that learned to see through sensors attached to their tongues. Another was about a traveler that visited hundreds of different places, explored new countries and climbed mountains. He was also blind. He used a cane for echolocation and made his way around the world. He walked, in total, over the distance from the earth to the moon.
Stories like these are my favorite, because they should be impossible. A blind man exploring the world? No way. People seeing through their tongues? Yeah right, like they have eyes there. People whose eyes skip over stationary things completely, but only register moving objects? Completely impossible, you say. But no, it's all here, right here in this book that you should have in your hands. I would recommend this to everyone that likes reading. You could hate anything related to neuroscience but love this book and hear yourself talking about it every chance you get.
August 9, 2019
There are so many reviews I need to finish typing up, so I hate to stick another RTC on a book, but... RTC!
Interesting blend of history + science. Very easy to read and accessible for people with no background in neuroscience imo. A lot of the science info was stuff I'm already familiar with but it was cool learning about the people who made all of these discoveries.
Interesting blend of history + science. Very easy to read and accessible for people with no background in neuroscience imo. A lot of the science info was stuff I'm already familiar with but it was cool learning about the people who made all of these discoveries.
November 10, 2020
The subtitle gives the best description of what to expect from this book. Sam Kean traces the history of neuroscience by providing examples of major advances, including brain traumas, experiments, accidental discoveries, and the causes of each. He includes fascinating stories from history. The science is explained in an easily understood manner. It is an informative and entertaining combination of science and history. This book will appeal to anyone interested in how the human brain works.
January 7, 2022
SO GOOD. Also often very sad. But incredibly interesting.
June 25, 2018
Fascinating!
This entire book was just endlessly fascinating to me. It's all about how traumatic insults to the skull and brain, whether by physical force or insidious viruses, affect our physical abilities and thoughts.
Kean expertly weaves storytelling about particular brain trauma patients with carefully explained science. I knew of a few of the conditions discussed, but certainly not in the detail Kean devotes. He explains the process of how damage occurs and then why that damage can cause conditions like kuru disease, phantom limbs, aphasia, hallucinations. He even touches on the history of scientists and doctors attempting to local the home of the soul in the brain.
Kean opens each section with the story of a particular person (or group of people) who has experienced an injury to the brain, and then explains how the doctors of the time attempted to help that victim with their contemporary knowledge. Each story is like a mini-mystery; you receive just enough information to understand the situation and then want to keep reading in order to solve/understand the process along with the doctors or scientists. I don't want to give them all away, but one example is how the cannibals in Papua, New Guinea were felled by kuru; in the end it wasn't because they cannibalized their dead ("eating brains isn't inherently deadly") but rather but rather "the bad luck of eating patient zero."
Kean explains why even people born without limbs can experience phantoms, blind people will still respond to smiles or scowls or yawns without even understanding why, how reading changes our brain, why some victims of brain damage can write perfectly well but cannot read (not even the sentence they just wrote), that brains vary from person to person as much as faces do, and how a set of (still living) twins share a conjoined brain and so can do things like taste what's in one another's mouths and yet retain distinct individual thoughts and preferences.
Witty, informative, a bit scary. To consider how vulnerable and yet also how resilient our brains are, is just fascinating.
This entire book was just endlessly fascinating to me. It's all about how traumatic insults to the skull and brain, whether by physical force or insidious viruses, affect our physical abilities and thoughts.
Kean expertly weaves storytelling about particular brain trauma patients with carefully explained science. I knew of a few of the conditions discussed, but certainly not in the detail Kean devotes. He explains the process of how damage occurs and then why that damage can cause conditions like kuru disease, phantom limbs, aphasia, hallucinations. He even touches on the history of scientists and doctors attempting to local the home of the soul in the brain.
Kean opens each section with the story of a particular person (or group of people) who has experienced an injury to the brain, and then explains how the doctors of the time attempted to help that victim with their contemporary knowledge. Each story is like a mini-mystery; you receive just enough information to understand the situation and then want to keep reading in order to solve/understand the process along with the doctors or scientists. I don't want to give them all away, but one example is how the cannibals in Papua, New Guinea were felled by kuru; in the end it wasn't because they cannibalized their dead ("eating brains isn't inherently deadly") but rather but rather "the bad luck of eating patient zero."
Kean explains why even people born without limbs can experience phantoms, blind people will still respond to smiles or scowls or yawns without even understanding why, how reading changes our brain, why some victims of brain damage can write perfectly well but cannot read (not even the sentence they just wrote), that brains vary from person to person as much as faces do, and how a set of (still living) twins share a conjoined brain and so can do things like taste what's in one another's mouths and yet retain distinct individual thoughts and preferences.
Witty, informative, a bit scary. To consider how vulnerable and yet also how resilient our brains are, is just fascinating.
February 23, 2025
I love reading medical non-fiction, but the problem is that after a while all the “bizarre and unique “stories start resurfacing again and again. Not so in this case, there were only 2 medical stories I have heard before, the rest were all new territory.
This is a dive into the waters of brain surgery, trauma, bizarre neurological disorders and misguided medical practices. But its more than just medical cases. The author made a point of adding a historical narrative spanning many fascinating characters.
I was equally fascinated by Mr Holman, the world’s most prolific traveler who never saw land, as I was by the short intro on Japanese POW Doctors research during captivity.
The chapters were at times a bit packed with science so I “snacked” on this between other books.
While I enjoyed The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, I really LOVED this one.
Just a word of caution, the author does not write books for the casual reader, you really need to enjoy this genre before giving this author a try.
This is a dive into the waters of brain surgery, trauma, bizarre neurological disorders and misguided medical practices. But its more than just medical cases. The author made a point of adding a historical narrative spanning many fascinating characters.
I was equally fascinated by Mr Holman, the world’s most prolific traveler who never saw land, as I was by the short intro on Japanese POW Doctors research during captivity.
The chapters were at times a bit packed with science so I “snacked” on this between other books.
While I enjoyed The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, I really LOVED this one.
Just a word of caution, the author does not write books for the casual reader, you really need to enjoy this genre before giving this author a try.
September 15, 2014
There is little to say about this book, because it is simply so brilliant. Kean has successfully melded legitimate science with entertaining history, and a touch of historic drama too. His prose is a perfect mix of easy to understand (except for his pictograms, but don't worry) technicality and almost irreverent language which adds to the entertainment.
December 3, 2015
What a wonderful book! Shouldn't have waited so long to read it.
September 1, 2020
Anécdotas y ciencia. Muy bueno.
Read
January 8, 2026This was an interesting read, except for the gruesome cases and details. The best take for me, was delivering some neuroscience theory in an entertainingly and comprehensive manner through the discoveries of how neuroscientists tried to understand the brain, through experiments and disorders. What I did not like was the quote in regards to modern doctors “retro-diagnosing” prophets or religious icons, including Prophet Muhammad (asws), as epileptic because of his ascension to heaven for example. The ascension did happen. It was not due to a medical disorder, nor did Prophet Muhammad (asws) suffer from anything of the sort. Funny how they admit that studying the physical brain will never explain the immaterial mind or consciousness: which remains to be the limits of neuroscience today, but then they snub and openly reject the entire concept of revelation.
Not only that, they do not reject the soul.
If a book is US/Euro/Western-centric both in perspective and audience, then western writers should tread very lightly when writing something they know nothing about. You either research more about him like how well you researched for this book or not talk about him at all.
Not only that, they do not reject the soul.
If a book is US/Euro/Western-centric both in perspective and audience, then western writers should tread very lightly when writing something they know nothing about. You either research more about him like how well you researched for this book or not talk about him at all.
October 31, 2017
İnsan beyni hepimizin merak ettiği ve sırları henüz tam çözülememiş bir konu. Konuya gerçekten çok yabancı olduğumu kitabı okuyunca anladım. Birçok açıdan geliştirici bir kitap. Hatta bu türde daha çok kitap okumaya karar verdim. Sonuçta harcanan bunca zamanın kalıcı bir karşılığı olması çok güzel. Zaman zaman teknik detaylara girdiği bölümlerde zorlansam da gerçekten başarılı bir kitap.
Sahip olduğumuz her psikolojik özelliğin fiziksel bir temeli olduğunu söylüyor Sam Kean. Aynı zamanda bunu destekleyen birçok gerçek hikaye anlatıyor kitabında. Beyindeki bozulmaların ve beyin kimyasının değişmesinin insan kişiliğini ne kadar çok etkilediğini çarpıcı bir şekilde gözler önüne seriyor. Kitapta pek çok yaralanma, dolayısıyla hüzünlü hikaye var. Hikayelerdeki kişilerin çoğu yaşadıkları beyin hasarı sonrasında bambaşka bir insan oluyor.
Aslında herşeye rağmen insan olarak ne kadar güçlü olduğumuzu bir kere daha anladım. Başımıza ne kadar kötü bir olay gelirse gelsin, yıkılıyoruz ve tekrar ayağa kalkabiliyoruz.
Kitaptaki son bölümde belirtildiği gibi içinizdeki sizin hiç kaybolmamasını diliyorum.
Sahip olduğumuz her psikolojik özelliğin fiziksel bir temeli olduğunu söylüyor Sam Kean. Aynı zamanda bunu destekleyen birçok gerçek hikaye anlatıyor kitabında. Beyindeki bozulmaların ve beyin kimyasının değişmesinin insan kişiliğini ne kadar çok etkilediğini çarpıcı bir şekilde gözler önüne seriyor. Kitapta pek çok yaralanma, dolayısıyla hüzünlü hikaye var. Hikayelerdeki kişilerin çoğu yaşadıkları beyin hasarı sonrasında bambaşka bir insan oluyor.
Aslında herşeye rağmen insan olarak ne kadar güçlü olduğumuzu bir kere daha anladım. Başımıza ne kadar kötü bir olay gelirse gelsin, yıkılıyoruz ve tekrar ayağa kalkabiliyoruz.
Kitaptaki son bölümde belirtildiği gibi içinizdeki sizin hiç kaybolmamasını diliyorum.
July 18, 2018
The good:
- Interesting and easy to understand stories (for the layperson)
- Distinct writing style that kept my attention
The bad:
- Felt like a collection of separate stories rather than a coherent narrative. Though the author does weave the narratives of subjects introduced in the first half back into the second half.
- The “dueling neurosurgeons” of the title seems to represent about a dozen different neurosurgeons. This felt weird, but maybe others interpreted the title in a different way.
- I am not 100% sure what his primary argument is, there seems to be too many vying for top tier.
- Sometimes the approachable, layperson language was overly simplistic (this coming from someone whose graduate studies have been firmly within the liberal arts world)
Overall, an interesting and explanatory read about what we know (and don’t know) about the human brain. 4/5*
- Interesting and easy to understand stories (for the layperson)
- Distinct writing style that kept my attention
The bad:
- Felt like a collection of separate stories rather than a coherent narrative. Though the author does weave the narratives of subjects introduced in the first half back into the second half.
- The “dueling neurosurgeons” of the title seems to represent about a dozen different neurosurgeons. This felt weird, but maybe others interpreted the title in a different way.
- I am not 100% sure what his primary argument is, there seems to be too many vying for top tier.
- Sometimes the approachable, layperson language was overly simplistic (this coming from someone whose graduate studies have been firmly within the liberal arts world)
Overall, an interesting and explanatory read about what we know (and don’t know) about the human brain. 4/5*
July 23, 2017
Library Kindle e-book
October 15, 2020
Love me some good brain stories. A still mysterious but amazing organ.
September 2, 2016
Two of the most interesting, engaging, and informative science books I've ever read were published in the last five years and written by the same person: Sam Kean. The first of these books, The Disappearing Spoon, is a history of the varied elements that make up the Periodic Table, which hangs in every American science classroom and is almost Borgesian in its functionality as both a serious emblem of scientific discovery and a series of 118 doorways that open to reveal 118 separate stories. Kean's second book, The Violinist's Thumb, was a similarly anthological collection of "lost tales," each demonstrating the ways in which our genes have made us into the people we are today. What makes both books so successful, not just as narrative pieces but also works of enlightenment, is Kean's unyielding belief in the people behind these stories. Rather than numb his readers with facts, figures, dates, and academic jargon, Kean distills the most important discoveries of our lifetime--not to mention the last few centuries--into stories of love, death, obsession, resilience, success, failure, and redemption. In some instances, his subjects are unlikely heroes; in others, their genius is tempered by arrogance, jealousy, or even bigotry. But they are human, and the very same men and women who discovered the microscopic bits that make up our universe, our world, and ourselves--the billions of tiny puzzle-pieces that fit together with such impossible precision to make the Everything around and inside us--also allow us to discover them through their work. And in Kean's mind, these two otherwise isolated bodies--the scientist and their science--are inextricably linked and, without one another, incomplete.
With The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Kean has taken on another difficult and long mysterious subject, the human brain...or, as he himself writes, the "electrified tapioca" nestled so precariously in the thick lockbox of bone atop our necks. It is the most important organ we possess--the Everest in the atlas of our bodies--and it is unique among the brains of all other creatures in that it is aware of itself, its functions, and its limitations. The human mind questions the universe and our place in it, ponders the existence of a Higher Power (or lack thereof), debates existential quandaries that are forever unsolvable, and struggles with emotions that even its millions of firing neurons cannot understand, though it expends quite a lot of its energy in pursuit of an answer all the same. And yet, for all its powers, we know so little about it that conflicts and disagreements among the most eminent of experts rage to this day, despite centuries of study. Even with the advent of advanced technology, those three gelatinous pounds remain mystifying, and ironically so: the very organ we use to decode the world around us is incapable of decoding itself.
It's in this rich, frustrating, and seemingly fruitless pursuit that Kean finds his stories. Much like his previous books, an outwardly simple scientific task--a cataloging of the world's elements, an analysis of human genetics, and now a study of the human brain--becomes a monumental exercise in patience, dedication, endurance and, frequently, pure dumb luck. The two most unforgettable stories--and for completely different reasons--involve scientists who found themselves in tropical locations thousands of miles from home. The first is story of Carleton Gajdusek, a bombastic and headstrong man who took up residence in the Southern Pacific to study kuru, a degenerative neurological disorder that was devastating an isolated tribe in New Guinea. Earning the trust of the locals, he was able to gather brain and tissue samples from their dead, which he then had to ship back to laboratories throughout the world without a reliable postal service or the assistance of refrigerated transport; by the time he returned stateside, he had gathered enough raw data and materials to diagnose the cause of the tribe's problems. Unfortunately, his return--with quite a few of the island's boys over a number of years--also marked the end of his career, as his sexual predilection for those same boys became known. Gajdusek would die in exile after spending a year in prison, his legacy ruined--a Nobel Prize forgotten--and his otherwise monumental research forever tarnished by his actions. Similarly, the disease he had dedicated much of his life to unraveling and even curing, known as the "laughing disease," ended on its own when the locals stopped consuming the brains of their recently deceased tribespeople.
The second story concerns two British soldiers during World War II who also happened to be doctors. Captured by Japanese soldiers and mercilessly starved, they watched as their fellow POWs fell victim to an epidemic of beriberi, which they documented in great detail for months on end but were unable to stop. When it became clear that their research would be confiscated and likely destroyed by their captors, the two men sealed their papers in a tin and buried everything, unsure if they would even survive to see their hypotheses tested. Luckily, both of them did, and their research was retrieved with literally minutes to spare.*
In both instances, the scientists involved found themselves in extreme conditions, noticed a devastating health problem, and used whatever they had on hand--makeshift surgical instruments, a cooler, scraps of paper, a tin, and their knowledge of the human body--to work towards a solution, not just to save lives, but to advance science itself. Many of the other stories featured in Kean's book work the same way. In one chapter, a famous neurosurgeon bribes a priest so that his assistant can cut out the glands of a dead man hours before he is to be buried; described as "an illiterate wagon-driver," the man--John Turner--suffered from giantism, and the neurosurgeon is certain the cause is located in his glands. But as the assistant finishes removing the pituitary, the deceased's family breaks down the funeral-parlor door, forcing the young assistant to flee into a waiting taxicab. In another, an epileptic known only as H.M. has pieces of his brain sucked out with a tube; the procedure cures him of almost all seizures but leaves him with almost no memories. In fact, his brain becomes such a mysterious and important part of neuroscience that, after he passes away at age 82, it is removed from his skull, frozen, sliced into more than two thousand micro-thin slices, and scanned at extreme magnification for digital study.
I write of these men and their patients in present tense, not only because they are the subjects of narrative nonfiction, but because their work--or, conversely, their ailments--are with us today. They inform modern science in ways that theories, anecdotal tales, and small-animal experimentation never could. Which is the tragedy that underlies much of Kean's book: in order for us to understand the brain as much as we do today, many people--men, women, and children equally--had to suffer. Some of them were unfazed by their ordeals, or they learned to live with what had happened to them, but most experienced pain and misery, if not total loss of life, and because of their own bodies no less. When neurosurgeons today speak of the advancements that have been made and the knowledge that has been gained, they speak of countless patients--dozens, maybe even hundreds of ordinary people--whose lives were unexpectedly interrupted, their bodies and minds forever unfixable. The pursuit of knowledge often claims its fair share of victims--Marie Curie is perhaps the most recognized example of this--but very few areas of science have claimed more than neurosurgery. And still, despite all this, we know very little. Those who taught us through their suffering did so in the beach-waters of an ocean that, even today, seems unimaginable in its breadth and depth. The horizon, unfortunately, is so very far away.
*One of the men--Hugh de Wardener--lived long enough to be interviewed by Kean himself for this book. De Wardener passed away in late 2013 at the age of 97.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
With The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Kean has taken on another difficult and long mysterious subject, the human brain...or, as he himself writes, the "electrified tapioca" nestled so precariously in the thick lockbox of bone atop our necks. It is the most important organ we possess--the Everest in the atlas of our bodies--and it is unique among the brains of all other creatures in that it is aware of itself, its functions, and its limitations. The human mind questions the universe and our place in it, ponders the existence of a Higher Power (or lack thereof), debates existential quandaries that are forever unsolvable, and struggles with emotions that even its millions of firing neurons cannot understand, though it expends quite a lot of its energy in pursuit of an answer all the same. And yet, for all its powers, we know so little about it that conflicts and disagreements among the most eminent of experts rage to this day, despite centuries of study. Even with the advent of advanced technology, those three gelatinous pounds remain mystifying, and ironically so: the very organ we use to decode the world around us is incapable of decoding itself.
It's in this rich, frustrating, and seemingly fruitless pursuit that Kean finds his stories. Much like his previous books, an outwardly simple scientific task--a cataloging of the world's elements, an analysis of human genetics, and now a study of the human brain--becomes a monumental exercise in patience, dedication, endurance and, frequently, pure dumb luck. The two most unforgettable stories--and for completely different reasons--involve scientists who found themselves in tropical locations thousands of miles from home. The first is story of Carleton Gajdusek, a bombastic and headstrong man who took up residence in the Southern Pacific to study kuru, a degenerative neurological disorder that was devastating an isolated tribe in New Guinea. Earning the trust of the locals, he was able to gather brain and tissue samples from their dead, which he then had to ship back to laboratories throughout the world without a reliable postal service or the assistance of refrigerated transport; by the time he returned stateside, he had gathered enough raw data and materials to diagnose the cause of the tribe's problems. Unfortunately, his return--with quite a few of the island's boys over a number of years--also marked the end of his career, as his sexual predilection for those same boys became known. Gajdusek would die in exile after spending a year in prison, his legacy ruined--a Nobel Prize forgotten--and his otherwise monumental research forever tarnished by his actions. Similarly, the disease he had dedicated much of his life to unraveling and even curing, known as the "laughing disease," ended on its own when the locals stopped consuming the brains of their recently deceased tribespeople.
The second story concerns two British soldiers during World War II who also happened to be doctors. Captured by Japanese soldiers and mercilessly starved, they watched as their fellow POWs fell victim to an epidemic of beriberi, which they documented in great detail for months on end but were unable to stop. When it became clear that their research would be confiscated and likely destroyed by their captors, the two men sealed their papers in a tin and buried everything, unsure if they would even survive to see their hypotheses tested. Luckily, both of them did, and their research was retrieved with literally minutes to spare.*
In both instances, the scientists involved found themselves in extreme conditions, noticed a devastating health problem, and used whatever they had on hand--makeshift surgical instruments, a cooler, scraps of paper, a tin, and their knowledge of the human body--to work towards a solution, not just to save lives, but to advance science itself. Many of the other stories featured in Kean's book work the same way. In one chapter, a famous neurosurgeon bribes a priest so that his assistant can cut out the glands of a dead man hours before he is to be buried; described as "an illiterate wagon-driver," the man--John Turner--suffered from giantism, and the neurosurgeon is certain the cause is located in his glands. But as the assistant finishes removing the pituitary, the deceased's family breaks down the funeral-parlor door, forcing the young assistant to flee into a waiting taxicab. In another, an epileptic known only as H.M. has pieces of his brain sucked out with a tube; the procedure cures him of almost all seizures but leaves him with almost no memories. In fact, his brain becomes such a mysterious and important part of neuroscience that, after he passes away at age 82, it is removed from his skull, frozen, sliced into more than two thousand micro-thin slices, and scanned at extreme magnification for digital study.
I write of these men and their patients in present tense, not only because they are the subjects of narrative nonfiction, but because their work--or, conversely, their ailments--are with us today. They inform modern science in ways that theories, anecdotal tales, and small-animal experimentation never could. Which is the tragedy that underlies much of Kean's book: in order for us to understand the brain as much as we do today, many people--men, women, and children equally--had to suffer. Some of them were unfazed by their ordeals, or they learned to live with what had happened to them, but most experienced pain and misery, if not total loss of life, and because of their own bodies no less. When neurosurgeons today speak of the advancements that have been made and the knowledge that has been gained, they speak of countless patients--dozens, maybe even hundreds of ordinary people--whose lives were unexpectedly interrupted, their bodies and minds forever unfixable. The pursuit of knowledge often claims its fair share of victims--Marie Curie is perhaps the most recognized example of this--but very few areas of science have claimed more than neurosurgery. And still, despite all this, we know very little. Those who taught us through their suffering did so in the beach-waters of an ocean that, even today, seems unimaginable in its breadth and depth. The horizon, unfortunately, is so very far away.
*One of the men--Hugh de Wardener--lived long enough to be interviewed by Kean himself for this book. De Wardener passed away in late 2013 at the age of 97.
This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.
March 1, 2024
en algunas partes me pareció pesado pero mayoritariamente estuvo muy interesante
Read
February 14, 2023
Overview
- Rating: N/A
- Summary: DNF (Did not finish)
- Trigger warning(s): N/A
The Good
- There were a few interesting facts.
The Bad
- The writing was a bit odd or made no sense.
- The stories were hard to follow.
Extended Review
I managed to get roughly 20% through before having to put it down as a DNF. This book is not for me and is more trouble than it is worth. I will not rate the book since I did not finish it and I will not state whether it is a good or bad book. I'd like to also note that I was listening to it as an audiobook. But, at least for now, I am putting it down and marking it as a DNF.
For the bit I did read, I found that there were a few interesting facts about neuroscience and the history behind it. Unfortunately, the writing was pretty poor or just straight up didn't make sense. Lastly, the stories were hard to follow which was one of the biggest factors contributing to the decision to put the book down.
- Rating: N/A
- Summary: DNF (Did not finish)
- Trigger warning(s): N/A
The Good
- There were a few interesting facts.
The Bad
- The writing was a bit odd or made no sense.
- The stories were hard to follow.
Extended Review
I managed to get roughly 20% through before having to put it down as a DNF. This book is not for me and is more trouble than it is worth. I will not rate the book since I did not finish it and I will not state whether it is a good or bad book. I'd like to also note that I was listening to it as an audiobook. But, at least for now, I am putting it down and marking it as a DNF.
For the bit I did read, I found that there were a few interesting facts about neuroscience and the history behind it. Unfortunately, the writing was pretty poor or just straight up didn't make sense. Lastly, the stories were hard to follow which was one of the biggest factors contributing to the decision to put the book down.
October 29, 2014
Many of my favorite books share a common structure: that of science lessons blended with the human interest stories behind their discoveries. The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons is a paragon of that genre (as is The Disappearing Spoon, another book that I absolutely loved by the same author).
Sam Kean methodically tackles the intricate subject of how our brains work, and how we came to know what we know about them. The first story goes back as far as the mid-16th century, in which a French king loses a jousting match and demonstrates that a severe blow to the head (and resulting brain damage) does not necessarily spell instant death. From there, the narrative steadily progresses through a historical lineup of accidents, diseases, lesions and birth defects that altered the standard structure of the brain. With each alteration, the change in speech, behavior, or appearance sends contemporary scientists back to the drawing board to explain the workings of that mysterious gray blob within our skulls.
While I have read numerous articles about such-and-such brain discovery, and neural correlates for a number of thoughts and actions, I was still surprised to see that we know as much as we do about the brain's function. Kean summarizes this knowledge clearly and adroitly, thematically jumping from one brain region to the next to discuss its primary functions, what happens when it is broken or inhibited, and telling the stories of those who learned the hard way.
Kean's enthusiasm is infectious, and he clearly has a love of language and passion for his subject. I was consistently impressed with how many additional details he was able to dig up about the lives of the people involved. The end result is a number of very human and nuanced portraits of the scientists and subjects, and new information even about such oft-probed figures as H.M. and Phineas Gage. Highly, highly recommended.
Sam Kean methodically tackles the intricate subject of how our brains work, and how we came to know what we know about them. The first story goes back as far as the mid-16th century, in which a French king loses a jousting match and demonstrates that a severe blow to the head (and resulting brain damage) does not necessarily spell instant death. From there, the narrative steadily progresses through a historical lineup of accidents, diseases, lesions and birth defects that altered the standard structure of the brain. With each alteration, the change in speech, behavior, or appearance sends contemporary scientists back to the drawing board to explain the workings of that mysterious gray blob within our skulls.
While I have read numerous articles about such-and-such brain discovery, and neural correlates for a number of thoughts and actions, I was still surprised to see that we know as much as we do about the brain's function. Kean summarizes this knowledge clearly and adroitly, thematically jumping from one brain region to the next to discuss its primary functions, what happens when it is broken or inhibited, and telling the stories of those who learned the hard way.
Kean's enthusiasm is infectious, and he clearly has a love of language and passion for his subject. I was consistently impressed with how many additional details he was able to dig up about the lives of the people involved. The end result is a number of very human and nuanced portraits of the scientists and subjects, and new information even about such oft-probed figures as H.M. and Phineas Gage. Highly, highly recommended.
September 19, 2019
Author Sam Kean does a wonderful job in this book weaving together human interest stories and historical accounts with complex neuroscience to educate the reader without ever being boring, unapproachable, or condescending. I love this approach to nonfiction writing. It is so much easier to retain the facts when they’re couched in entertaining tales of wild accidents and spontaneous personality changes.
There were countless times during this book that I felt the urge to stop and tell someone what I had just learned. For instance, that a person with a specific brain abnormality can lose the ability to read but retain the ability to write. So I wouldn’t be able to read this book I’m reviewing but I could write this sentence, and then not be able to read it right after!
I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s had a slump of nonfiction. They can be fun and this one is proof!
for more reviews and content please visit my new blog amanjareads.com
There were countless times during this book that I felt the urge to stop and tell someone what I had just learned. For instance, that a person with a specific brain abnormality can lose the ability to read but retain the ability to write. So I wouldn’t be able to read this book I’m reviewing but I could write this sentence, and then not be able to read it right after!
I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s had a slump of nonfiction. They can be fun and this one is proof!
for more reviews and content please visit my new blog amanjareads.com
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