Allan H. Ropper, M.D., is professor of neurology at Harvard
Medical School and Raymond D. Adams Master Clinician of the
Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is also
a deputy editor of The New England Journal of Medicine and a fellow
of the American Academy of Neurology, the Royal College of
Physicians, and the American College of Physicians. Dr. Ropper is
an author of the most widely consulted textbook of neurology,
Principles of Neurology, currently in its eleventh edition, and
coauthor with Brian David Burrell of Reaching Down the Rabbit
Hole.
Brian David Burrell is a member of the mathematics faculty
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A teacher and writer,
he is the author of several books, including Postcards from the
Brain Museum, The Words We Live By, and, jointly with Dr. Allan H.
Ropper, Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole. He is an authority on brain
collections worldwide, and has discussed his work on NBC's Today,
C-SPAN's Booknotes, and NPR's Morning Edition.
“This aptly titled book picks up where Oliver Sacks left off in
examining the behavioral characteristics of neurobehavioral
syndromes in an effort to span the gap that has historically
separated the twin disciplines of the brain, neurology, and
psychiatry. In contrasting the organic (general paresis of the
insane) with the ethereal (hysteria), this neuropsychiatric
treatise brings the two divergent disciplines closer together
without committing to their ultimate unification.”—Jeffrey A.
Lieberman, MD, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons; Past President of the
American Psychiatric Association; author of Shrinks: The Untold
Story of Psychiatry
"Occasionally, a treatise arrives that challenges conventional
reductionist notions that brain and mind can be unified through the
neuroscience of the brain. Current brain analysis via brain scans,
neural networks, genomic analysis, and psychopharmacology has not
seduced Ropper and Burrell, who take the contrarian position that
there is a subjective mental life that organizes itself. In an
unusually readable and surprisingly lyrical account of syphilis, a
surrogate for mental disorders caused by brain destruction, and
hysteria, a stand-in for psychiatric disorders, they create a
fascinating tension between neurology and psychiatry and offer
thoughts on unifying the two fields of clinical medicine. Their
original interpretations of Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness and Thomas Mann’s Dr. Faustus alone makes
the book worth reading as literary criticism."—Joseph B. Martin,
MD, PhD, Dean Emeritus, Harvard Medical School
“A sweeping narrative of how the concept of mental illness evolved
in the context of culture, history, and science. How the Brain
Lost its Mind is written with wit and wisdom, and filled with
vividly depicted colorful characters from Freud to Maupassant
to the Marquis de Sade, from the physicians of nineteenth
century Europe to the public health commissioners of 1930s New
York. Ropper and Burrell trace the riveting history of the
science of the mind and brain, revealing how and
why neurology and psychiatry split, and how the future of
medicine depends on their reunification.”—Aaron Berkowitz, MD, PhD,
associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical
School; author of Clinical Neurology and Neuroanatomy and
The Improvising Mind
“I have listened to, watched, and read Allan Ropper on subjects
related to the brain for thirty years. He's still my teacher,
but I've never seen him teach like this. Along with his friend
and gifted co-author, Ropper takes us on a romp through centuries
of cultural and scientific history. There's a kicker: can that
history clarify and crystallize through the lens of just one nasty
disease? Yes. Read how in this page-turningly accessible
and brilliant book.”—Edison K. Miyawaki, MD, assistant professor of
neurology at Harvard Medical School; author of The Frontal Brain
and Language
“A thrilling journey from the dramatic common origins of neurology
and psychiatry, through their historical divergence, to their
current realignment. The medical, scientific and social
histories of two fascinating conditions are brilliantly interwoven
and contrasted. Fascinating stories, masterfully told, bring
to life the notable patients who suffered with these strange
maladies, and the extraordinary doctors who treated them as they
sought cures. This is essential and engaging reading for anyone who
wants to understand these most interesting medical and
philosophical issues, and how they have played out across
continents and centuries.”—David Silbersweig, MD, chairman,
Department of Psychiatry, co-director, Center for the
Neurosciences, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Stanley Cobb Professor
of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
“A page-turner vividly depicting the struggles of medicine’s
perennial sibling rivals: neurology and psychiatry. The dramatic
interactions between clinical investigators and
patients—occasionally one and the same—demonstrate how ideas
relating mind to brain pervasively influence our sense of
ourselves.”—Paul McHugh, MD, Chairman Emeritus of
Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
"Through tales of eminent physicians and their suffering patients,
replete with sex, drugs, and magnetically-induced hypnotism, we
learn how a bacterium that deprived countless souls of their reason
also helped scientists discover a role for brain biology in mental
illness."—Alan Jasanoff, PhD, author of The Biological Mind;
Professor of Biological Engineering, Brain & Cognitive Sciences,
Nuclear Science & Engineering
“Know someone who has bizarre thoughts or strange behaviors? Ever
wonder whether it means mental illness or a brain disease or both?
Ropper and Burrell have written an insightful, fantastically
readable analysis of what was once called ‘hysteria.’ Also, by
studying how things can go wrong, we learn a great deal about the
working of the human mind when things go right.”—Elizabeth Loftus,
PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science, University
of California, Irvine; author of Eyewitness Testimony
“It is remarkable how much influence syphilis has had on human
history and how widespread the disease has been. Even today,
the subject is generally off limits, which is why the story remains
mostly unknown—and why How the Brain Lost Its Mind makes for
compelling reading. Like all well written histories—and this
one is very well written—the narrative engages like a mystery
novel. But the story is true, and replete with sometimes
salacious, sometimes revelatory details. Ultimately, it is the
story of the beginning and development of the modern scientific
study of the brain and the mind: the false leads and great
discoveries, the charlatans and the heroes. The question of what is
a disease of the brain and what is an illness of the mind remains
undetermined even in our knowledgeable and enlightened era. A
fascinating and sophisticated read."—Avi Nelson
"A compelling read."—Library Journal
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