Download The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery AudioBook Free
The author of the best seller The Disappearing Spoon unveils the secret internal workings of the mind through strange-but-true stories. Early studies of the mind used a straightforward method: Wait for misfortune to hit - strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous incidents - and see how victims coped. In many cases their success was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when various areas of the mind were destroyed, changing patients' personalities. Parents all of the sudden couldn't acknowledge their own children. Pillars of the city became pathological liars. Some individuals couldn't speak but could still sing. In The Story of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, Sam Kean travels through time with stories of neurological curiosities: Phantom limbs, Siamese twin brains, viruses that eat patients' memory, blind people who see through their tongues. He weaves these narratives alongside one another to create a story of finding that reaches back again to the 1500s and the high-profile jousting crash that motivated this book's subject.* Using the lucid, masterful explanations and razor-sharp wit his admirers have come to expect, Kean explores the brain's top secret passageways and recounts the overlooked tales of the ordinary people whose problems, resilience, and deep mankind made neuroscience possible. *"The Story of the Dueling Neurosurgeons" identifies the truth of French ruler Henri II, who in 1559 was lanced through the skull throughout a joust, resulting in one of many cases in neuroscience background. For more than 100 years scientists have gained important lessons from traumatic accidents and health issues, and such misfortunes still represent their greatest tool for discovery.
