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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 by Sam Kean
5 stars

It took me a while to finally get to this book and I don't know why, Sam Kean never fails to entertain.

After tackling the periodic table in The Disappearing Spoon and DNA in The Violinist's Thumb, Kean dives into the human brain. And I don't mean "dive" in a figurative sense, I mean he describes doctor literally digging around in people's brains to figure out how they worked.

Kean is a master and making science engaging. He educates about the brain and its functions by telling fascinating stories about science history. He talks about researchers and patients, and odd stories that will rattle around in my own brain (the limbic parts like the thalamus and hypothalamus, to be exact) for a long time. He talks about kings (King Henri II had a horrific lance accident and then underwent an unheard of royal autopsy), presidents (Woodrow Wilson's stroke in essence made his wife the first female acting president), and working men (Gage had a 3.5 foot metal spike enter beneath his eye and exit through the top of his head, and he stayed conscious through it all).

It is amazing how the only way doctors used to be able to study the brain was after people got hurt—a knock on the head all the way up to a spear through the skull—when they mapped the injury and noted what physical damages the patient suffered. Some doctors even caused the damage themselves (mostly unintentionally) as they tried to do primitive neurosurgery.

I admit that Kean may be more on the advanced end of the "general public" spectrum, but if you have any scientific curiosity and/or find details fascinating, then I cannot recommend his books highly enough.

Nicole R wrote: "The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery by Sam Kean
5 stars

It took me a..."

This sounds excellent. I would love to know more; I have read a couple of things, not this focused on these issues. I do remember learning about how stroke victims have helped scientists map much of the brain, and helped them learn interesting tidbits like verbs are stored in a different area than nouns, etc (so one stroke victim might have trouble with nouns post stroke but have no trouble with verbs and vice versa).

Drat, another book for my tbr--but when I saw this title I had to check it out.

Definantly adding. I have never read this author.

The title sounded really strange until I read your review, Nicole. I am adding it, too! Sounds fascinating.

I hope you all enjoy it! Kean also has a wry sense of humor, which made reading all that more enjoyable.