The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons

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
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

A dear friend recommended it to me, and I thought it could be a really heavy read, which I was but it was so FASCINATING. For the time I was reading this book, all I could talk about was the new things I had learned and what I found more interesting than the last time I had spoken about the book, (which wasn't very long).

I loved how the book was able to capture how far neurosurgery and things relating to the brain went back as fair as Medieval times and then the advancements that have come with great success. By far my favourite part would have to be learning about the face transplants. I found that completely interesting and just wanted to keep reading about it. I also liked how the chapter started about the lady that would make facial prosthetics that would hide face deformities or injuries. She was an artist and she used her talent to help people. The lengths she would go to by creating features that the person had before, ie. wire whiskers and beards, was outstanding. The mention of Phineas Gage was not surprising because he is one of psychology's go to people for personality changes after his accident, but the thing I liked about how Kean wrote about him was that he found a lot of information prior to the incident and also after the incident. It was like Kean really wanted you to get to know Gage as a person and then see the huge changes that would effect his life and the people around him. I had never known so much about Phineas Gage until this book. All I knew prior was that he was the guy that got a railroad tie through his head, but even that description doesn't really explain what happened nor the instrument that it happened with.

I could rant till the cows come home about how fabulous this book is. It truly grabbed my attention and made me think but also absorb so much information that was not known. One thing that was frustrating was that I was unable to figure out the pictograms for the words at the beginning of the chapters. I think I really only got 2/12 but I will be writing Kean to get the answers because I am very curious.

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME book!

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