The Untold Story of Neurosciences Most Famous Brain
Like most famous patients in the history of neuroscience, Henry Molaison—or HM, as he was known among scientists—was famous because his brain was defective. Unlike the other patients, his case was not an accident but the deliberate work of a surgeon.
In 1953, a neurosurgeon suctioned out two slivers from brain Henry’s skull, hoping to cure him of epilepsy. The surgery helped the seizures, if not completely, but it made Henry unable to form any new memories. (Sound familiar? He was also the inspiration for the movie Memento .) It essentially froze him in time, with a strange memory deficit that ends up illuminating more about how memory works than any other single case in history.
The neurosurgeon who unwittingly made this contribution to memory science was Luke Dittrich’s grandfather. Dittrich has now written a remarkable book titled Patient HM . Henry may have appeared in countless books and articles about the brain already, but Dittrich unearths so many troubling new revelations.
His grandfather, William Beecher Scoville, was a brilliant and brash neurosurgeon, as concerned about scientific experimentation as Henry’s well-being when he drilled into Henry’s skull. Henry’s brain wasn’t the only one he experimented on. Dittrich talked to WIRED about his grandfather, the culture of experimentation on mentally ill patients, and the legacy of Henry’s brain, which is now stored in slices at the University of California, Davis.
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Interesting interview, and slightly unnerving.
I was watching the series "The Knick" and I was surprised to find out how many early "neurosurgeries" there were, even dating back to the late 1880's. Science back at the turn of the century and really up to the 1960's rendered people with mental problems of all sorts, to the hands of many experiments. Also, theories came up all the time, with no actual scientific models. For example, there was a theory that infection of the teeth caused mental illness, and many people were subject to having all their teeth removed.
The "Eugenics" movement, which started in the late 1800's had also taken hold at most medical schools here in the US by 1900. Charles Davenport, perfected the concepts here on Long Island at Cold Springs Harbor Labs (still in existence with strong ties to the most notorious island in the US, Plum Island), and then went on tours of European universities.
This is the conundrum of looking back at early medicine. While we owe a lot to them for making the breakthroughs that help us today, they often did so without any medical ethics and not using the scientific model.
Really interesting article, Larry!
Concepts of morality continually tug at the applications of science in technology, as well they should. Conversations about morality and technology are increasingly finding their way into the public sphere, as we are hard pressed more all the time to find technical solutions to problems. A couple of things come to mind. For one thing, those ethical questions are real and worthy, giving relevance to our experience, and hopefully acknowledging that we are in charge of our technology, rather than the other way around. Another thing that strikes me is that a number of the challenges we face are caused by our misuse of technology in the first place. We keep attempting to "fix" the world around us, and continue to screw-it up instead. Our application of science (technology) must be subservient to higher moral questions, ones we ourselves are still attempting to master.
I think you will find this quite interesting as well.
I download videos so I can watch them on my phone from YouTube, but more than that I download only the audio from the video so I can listen to it while, I'm working. Since I do a lot of driving and a lot of work without having to do much communicating with others I downloaded dozens of YouTube audios and listened to them. I may also have the video downloaded so I can watch it at my convenience. You really can learn a lot by doing this if you have the time to listen to them. Sometimes I'll listen to one several times if I really like it.
This video which I've only downloaded the audio for is quite interesting.
I am blocked from (nearly all) streaming media at work, but will check it out later at home Six.
I am blocked from (nearly all) streaming media at work, but will check it out later at home Six.
This is not streaming media Larry. This is YouTube.
Here is the way you do it:
First you go to this website:
Then you open another window and go to YouTube and find a video. Of course videos with a lot of writing on the screen and little talking aren't too good, but lectures or even books that are on YouTube are good. I listened to "The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire" a couple times, "The First 1000 Years of Christianity" and many others.
So now you have two window open.
You copy the link from the YouTube video and put it in the other window "theyoump3.com" is located in.
Convert it and download it.
Make a folder for these types of files and put the download in it.
Then you connect you phone to your computer and it comes up as the phone and a hard drive.
Make a folder in the hard drive (which is your sandisk" and put the file from the computer into that folder.
Disconnect the phone and you can play the YouTube audio on your phone, so when you are busy working and not talking at work, you can be learning something instead of listening to music.
Any problems, I'll be happy to help you.
Oh, by the way don't forget to save that website in you favorites or somewhere, so it will be easily accessed.
Oh and by the way if you want to download a YouTube video, you can do that just as easily.
All you have to do is put "ss" without the parenthesis right before the "youtu" in the link and refresh the screen.
It will carry you to another screen and start converting the video. Don't choose any of the other methods offered this screen to convert the video. Give it a moment and all of a sudden you will see your video name and a picture come up. It will say "Download". Choose that, make the folder "YouTube Videos" and continue from there.
Good luck.
Answers given for free.
Good answers $10.00
Great video and contribution, thank you Six! Nova is a blast, like a little mini mind vacation.
:~)
Can you put that into a format I can open?
More than a little unnerving Larry.
I can't imagine the horrors inflicted on folks in the name of altruism and science, but there is ample evidence all around us, even besides this article.
Modern science needs to take a step back and learn more from the original teacher, Mother Earth! The more I understand about the very real healing touch of nature, the more convinced I am that some emotional problems, and maybe even some mental illness, are caused by our separation from nature. It's time in some ways to get back to basics.
Like pre-frontal lobotomies? How horrible!!!
I keep thinking of poor Eva Peron. Suffering the horrors of ovarian cancer, they performed a lobotomy to 'ease her pain'. Actually, they just denied her the ability to express it. HORRIBLE!
My own aunt, my mother's sister, died of a brain tumor in 1925. They operated on the wrong side of her skull, and the tumor pushed part of her brain out. She didn't make it, needless to say. We've come so far, but really so little.
The medical profession is really rather barbaric, in a lot of ways.
Just don't make Nurse Ratchid angry.
LOL, Buzz! SHE was scary!