Name: Patient H.M.
ISBN: 9780812992731

Luke Dittrich

"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"--Provided by publisher.

A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets

Patient H.M.

Nadine 

Frightening story of the power of the medical establishment as the son of the doctor unravels the history of a patient & his family

Kirsten Adam

A page-turning read, and I particularly enjoyed the deep dive into the rise and fall of neurosurgery. However, the positive feelings I initially had about this book were marred by potentially alarming elements of sensationalism and misrepresentation. 

See: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/o...

After reading this editorial, I worry that other gripping passages in this book (unrelated to the particular case of Sue Corkin) are also distorted by similar sensationalist devices. Good science writing should be gripping but honest. I leave the book feeling intrigued, but skeptical of how much I can trust the author as an unbiased narrator.

Kerry Gibbons

This book is highly problematic in a number of ways. The structure of the book, as others have pointed out, leaves a lot to be desired: it can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a memoir, a family history, a medical microhistory,or some hybrid of the three. This DOES resolve itself in my mind within the last few chapters of the book but to be honest, one should at a minimum be able to guess at this having the potential to be resolved. 

All the facets of the book being disjointed does seem to be intentional in some misguided attempt at mirroring H.M.’s amnesia. It’s obtuse at best in that sense.

All that said, the subject matter is good. I learned a great deal about memory and lobotomy... 

I think a well-written introduction would serve this book more than any other I’ve ever read. It would give context for the non-sequitur style of the book, for why we might be even vaguely interested in this guy’s grandma, etc etc. 

Overall, I think I liked it but I nearly gave up on it more than a couple times.

Tanya Sutton

While this book had interesting information about the history of lobotomy and mental health treatment over the past 150 years, it jumped around quite a bit and felt a bit jumbled. The attempts to weave together Henry M.'s story and the history of the surgeon who performed his lobotomy was not entirely successful. There were too many other patients and other surgeons muddled the story and made it hard to follow.

(Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)

In the summer of 1953, maverick neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville performed a groundbreaking operation on an epileptic patient named Henry Molaison. But it was a catastrophic failure, leaving Henry unable to create long-term memories. Scoville's grandson, Luke Dittrich, takes us on an astonishing journey through the history of neuroscience, from the first brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the New England asylum where his grandfather developed a taste for human experimentation. Dittrich's investigation confronts unsettling family secrets and reveals the dark roots of modern neuroscience, raising troubling questions that echo into the present day.

A Story of Memory, Madness and Family Secrets

Jeni Enjaian

I found much of this book absolutely fascinating, especially the fact the grandson of Scoville wrote the book. However, for the majority of the book, I could not figure out the organization of Dittrich's narrative. He started with Patient H.M. but then meandered to and fro in the history of psychology and his family's own personal history. The largest chunk of consistent chronology came in the last section of the book when he tells the saga of Henry's brain. 
Again, I did not dislike any part of the book, although I did cringe a little bit at some of the descriptions of the brain surgeries. I just did not see the needed consistency and organization for this story to have maximum impact.

Patient H.M. A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets

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