Research Catalog
Patient H.M. : a story of memory, madness and family secrets
- Title
- Patient H.M. : a story of memory, madness and family secrets / Luke Dittrich.
- Author
- Dittrich, Luke
- Publication
- New York : Random House, 2016.
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2 Items
Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 17-6200 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Request in advance | JFE 16-10359 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xv, 440 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
- Summary
- "In the summer of 1953, a renowned Yale neurosurgeon named William Beecher Scoville performed a novel operation on a 27-year-old epileptic patient named Henry Molaison, drilling two silver-dollar sized holes in his forehead and suctioning out a few teaspoons of tissue from a mysterious region deep inside his brain. The operation helped control Molaison's intractable seizures, but it also did something else: It left Molaison amnesic for the rest of his life, with a short term memory of just thirty seconds. Patient H.M., as he came to be known, would emerge as the most important human research subject in history. Much of what we now know about how memory works is a direct result of the sixty years of near-constant experimentation carried out upon him until his death in 2008. Award-winning journalist Luke Dittrich brings readers from the gleaming laboratory in San Diego where Molaison's disembodied brain -- now the focus of intense scrutiny -- sits today; to the surgical suites of the 1940s and 50s, where doctors wielded the powers of gods; and into the examination rooms where generations of researchers performed endless experiments on a single, essential, oblivious man: H.M.. In the process, Dittrich excavates the lives of Dr. Scoville and his most famous patient, and spins their tales together in thrilling, kaleidoscopic fashion, uncovering troves of well-guarded secrets, and revealing how the bright future of modern neuroscience has dark roots in the forgotten history of psychosurgery, raising ethical questions that echo into the present day"--Provided by publisher.
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- Biography.
- Note
- Includes index.
- Call Number
- JFE 17-6200
- ISBN
- 9780812992731
- 0812992733
- LCCN
- 2015048638
- OCLC
- 2015048638
- Author
- Dittrich, Luke, author.
- Title
- Patient H.M. : a story of memory, madness and family secrets / Luke Dittrich.
- Publisher
- New York : Random House, 2016.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Research Call Number
- JFE 17-6200JFE 16-10359