Skip to content
The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery (Paperback)
  • The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery (Paperback)
zoom

The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery (Paperback)

(author)
£12.99
Paperback 496 Pages
Published: 26/03/2015
Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
  • In stock

Usually dispatched within 1-2 days

Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £2.99
  • This item has been added to your basket

For centuries, scientists had only one way to study the brain: wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infections, lobotomies, horrendous accidents, phantom limbs, Siamese twins - and see how the victims changed afterwards. In many cases their survival was miraculous, and observers marvelled at the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed. Parents suddenly couldn't recognise their children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars and paedophiles. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. Others couldn't read but could write.
The stories of these people laid the foundations of modern neuroscience and, century by century, key cases taught scientists what every last region of the brain did. With lucid explanations and incisive wit, Sam Kean explores the brain's secret passageways and recounts the forgotten tales of the ordinary individuals whose struggles, resilience and deep humanity made neuroscience possible.

Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9781784161033
Number of pages: 496
Weight: 335 g
Dimensions: 197 x 127 x 31 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

Kean's lively new book unpacks a bundle of fascinating, alarming and sometimes heartbreaking case histories - Mail on Sunday

Entertaining... Some of his stories are astonishing... Kean tells a good story and asks the right questions - The Sunday Times

Kean...reveal[s] how intracranial calamities have built neuroscience case by puzzled-out case, gross anatomy to consciousness. However pop the science, there is much to compel - Nature

The author's skill in illuminating how the brain functions and malfunctions manifest themselves in people's lives makes for absorbing reading....These avowals ultimately raise weighty, compelling questions about the nature of identity and what it means to be human - Wall Street Journal

You may also be interested in...

Nature Guide Stars and Planets
Added to basket
You Are the Placebo
Added to basket
Fermat’s Last Theorem
Added to basket
The Sports Gene
Added to basket
Zero Degrees of Empathy
Added to basket
In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat
Added to basket
Why Does E=mc2?
Added to basket
Paperback
£13.99
Chaos
Added to basket
Paperback
£12.99
The Signal and the Noise
Added to basket
Physics and Philosophy
Added to basket
The Marshmallow Test
Added to basket
A Little History of Science
Added to basket
The Brain That Changes Itself
Added to basket

Please sign in to write a review

Your review has been submitted successfully.