Patient H.M. : a story of memory, madness, and family secrets
(Book)

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Published
New York : Random House, 2017.
ISBN
9780812982527, 0812982525
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LocationCall NumberStatus
St. Charles Public Library District - Adult Nonfiction616.85232 DITOn Shelf

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Published
New York : Random House, 2017.
Format
Book
Physical Desc
xv, 462 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Language
English
ISBN
9780812982527, 0812982525

Notes

Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 417-437) and index.
Description
In 1953, a twenty-seven-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison -- who suffered from severe epilepsy -- received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry's seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next sixty years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today. Patient H.M. is, at times, a deeply personal journey. Dittrich's grandfather was the brilliant, morally complex surgeon who operated on Molaison -- and thousands of other patients. The author's investigation into the dark roots of modern memory science ultimately forces him to confront unsettling secrets in his own family history, and to reveal the tragedy that fueled his grandfather's relentless experimentation -- experimentation that would revolutionize our understanding of ourselves. Dittrich uses the case of Patient H.M. as a starting point for a kaleidoscopic journey, one that moves from the first recorded brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge laboratories of MIT. He takes readers inside the old asylums and operating theaters where psychosurgeons, as they called themselves, conducted their human experiments, and behind the scenes of a bitter custody battle over the ownership of the most important brain in the world.

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Dittrich, L. (2017). Patient H.M.: a story of memory, madness, and family secrets (Random House trade paperback edition.). Random House.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Dittrich, Luke. 2017. Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets. Random House.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Dittrich, Luke. Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets Random House, 2017.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Dittrich, Luke. Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets Random House trade paperback edition., Random House, 2017.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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