Literary Medicine: Brain Disease and Doctors in Novels, Theater, and Film

Literary Medicine: Brain Disease and Doctors in Novels, Theater, and Film PDF

Author: J. Bogousslavsky

Publisher: Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 3318022713

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An amazing and fascinating look at neurological conditions in fiction and film Classical and modern literature is full of patients with interesting neurological, cognitive, or psychiatric diseases, often including detailed and accurate descriptions, which suggests the authors were inspired by observations of real people. In many cases these literary portrayals of diseases even predate their formal identification by medical science. Fictional literature encompasses nearly all kinds of disorders affecting the nervous system, with certain favorites such as memory loss and behavioral syndromes. There are even unique observations that cannot be found in scientific and clinical literature because of the lack of appropriate studies. Not only does literature offer a creative and humane look at disorders of the brain and mind, but just as authors have been inspired by medicine and real disorders, clinicians have also gained knowledge from literary depictions of the disorders they encounter in their daily practice. This book provides an amazing and fascinating look at neurological conditions, patients, and doctors in literature and film in a way which is both nostalgic and novel.

Illness and Literature in the Low Countries

Illness and Literature in the Low Countries PDF

Author: Jaap Grave

Publisher: V&R Unipress

Published: 2015-12-09

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 3847005200

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From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine. The first book of Homer's Ilias recounts the plague that swept the camp of the Achaeans. While this instance concerns a full-length book, it is the aphorism that is of greater importance as a literary technique for the dissemination of medical knowledge, from the "Corpus Hippocraticum" of antiquity until the "Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis" (1715) by Herman Boerhaave. In addition, the subject of illness and its impact on mankind was explored by great numbers of poetic scholars and scholarly poets.This collection offers fourteen articles which all highlight the relation between disease and literature. It entails a first-ever overview of Dutch-language research in this field, whereby the literary and cultural functions of medical knowledge and the poetics of medical and literary writing are in the focus.

Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone PDF

Author: Abraham Verghese

Publisher: Random House India

Published: 2012-05-17

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 8184001754

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Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.

Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness

Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness PDF

Author: Susannah Cahalan

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0141975350

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'My first serious blackout marked the line between sanity and insanity. Though I would have moments of lucidity over the coming days and weeks, I would never again be the same person ...' Susannah Cahalan was a happy, clever, healthy twenty-four-year old. Then one day she woke up in hospital, with no memory of what had happened or how she had got there. Within weeks, she would be transformed into someone unrecognizable, descending into a state of acute psychosis, undergoing rages and convulsions, hallucinating that her father had murdered his wife; that she could control time with her mind. Everything she had taken for granted about her life, and who she was, was wiped out. Brain on Fire is Susannah's story of her terrifying descent into madness and the desperate hunt for a diagnosis, as, after dozens of tests and scans, baffled doctors concluded she should be confined in a psychiatric ward. It is also the story of how one brilliant man, Syria-born Dr Najar, finally proved - using a simple pen and paper - that Susannah's psychotic behaviour was caused by a rare autoimmune disease attacking her brain. His diagnosis of this little-known condition, thought to have been the real cause of devil-possessions through history, saved her life, and possibly the lives of many others. Cahalan takes readers inside this newly-discovered disease through the progress of her own harrowing journey, piecing it together using memories, journals, hospital videos and records. Written with passionate honesty and intelligence, Brain on Fire is a searingly personal yet universal book, which asks what happens when your identity is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back. 'With eagle-eye precision and brutal honesty, Susannah Cahalan turns her journalistic gaze on herself as she bravely looks back on one of the most harrowing and unimaginable experiences one could ever face: the loss of mind, body and self. Brain on Fire is a mesmerizing story' -Mira Bartók, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Palace Susannah Cahalan is a reporter on the New York Post, and the recipient of the 2010 Silurian Award of Excellence in Journalism for Feature Writing. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, and is frequently picked up by the Daily Mail, Gawker, Gothamist, AOL and Yahoo among other news aggregrator sites.

The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine

The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine PDF

Author: Janice P. Nimura

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2021-01-19

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0393635554

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New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Biography "Janice P. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor." —Stacy Schiff Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician. Exploring the sisters’ allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women’s rights—or with each other. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now."

A History of Neuropsychology

A History of Neuropsychology PDF

Author: J. Bogousslavsky

Publisher: Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 3318064637

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Neuropsychology has become a very important aspect for neurologists in clinical practice as well as in research. Being a specialized field in psychology, its long history is based on different historical developments in brain science and clinical neurology. In this volume, we want to show how present concepts of neuropsychology originated and were established by outlining the most important developments since the end of the 19th century. The articles of this book that cover topics such as aphasia, amnesia and dementia show a great multicultural influence due to an editorship and authorship that spans all developmental initiatives in Europe, Asia, and America. This book gives a better understanding of the development of higher brain function studies and is an interesting read for neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, neurosurgeons, historians, and anyone else interested in the history of neuropsychology.

How Doctors Think

How Doctors Think PDF

Author: Jerome Groopman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2008-03-12

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 0547348630

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On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong—with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. Groopman explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can—with our help—avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveal how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses. How Doctors Think offers direct, intelligent questions patients can ask their doctors to help them get back on track. Groopman draws on a wealth of research, extensive interviews with some of the country’s best doctors, and his own experiences as a doctor and as a patient. He has learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way, from his own mistakes and from errors his doctors made in treating his own debilitating medical problems. How Doctors Think reveals a profound new view of twenty-first-century medical practice, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.

The Invisible Kingdom

The Invisible Kingdom PDF

Author: Meghan O'Rourke

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2023-02-28

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0399573305

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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, The New Yorker, Time, and Vogue “Remarkable.” –Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review "At once a rigorous work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy.”—Esquire "A ray of light into those isolated cocoons of darkness that, at one time or another, may afflict us all.” —The Wall Street Journal "Essential."—The Boston Globe A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: these are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether. Renowned writer Meghan O’Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of “invisible” illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier. Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O’Rourke traces the history of Western definitions of illness, and reveals how inherited ideas of cause, diagnosis, and treatment have led us to ignore a host of hard-to-understand medical conditions, ones that resist easy description or simple cures. And as America faces this health crisis of extraordinary proportions, the populations most likely to be neglected by our institutions include women, the working class, and people of color. Blending lyricism and erudition, candor and empathy, O’Rourke brings together her deep and disparate talents and roles as critic, journalist, poet, teacher, and patient, synthesizing the personal and universal into one monumental project arguing for a seismic shift in our approach to disease. The Invisible Kingdom offers hope for the sick, solace and insight for their loved ones, and a radical new understanding of our bodies and our health.

No Apparent Distress: A Doctor's Coming of Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine

No Apparent Distress: A Doctor's Coming of Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine PDF

Author: Rachel Pearson

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0393249255

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A brutally frank memoir about doctors and patients in a health care system that puts the poor at risk. No Apparent Distress begins with a mistake made by a white medical student that may have hastened the death of a working-class black man who sought care in a student-run clinic. Haunted by this error, the author—herself from a working-class background—delves into the stories and politics of a medical training system in which students learn on the bodies of the poor. Part confession, part family history, No Apparent Distress is at once an indictment of American health care and a deeply moving tale of one doctor’s coming-of-age.

On the Move

On the Move PDF

Author: Oliver Sacks

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2015-04-28

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0385352557

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When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.” It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, On the Move is infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California, where he struggled with drug addiction, and then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, we see how his engagement with patients comes to define his life. With unbridled honesty and humor, Sacks shows us that the same energy that drives his physical passions—weight lifting and swimming—also drives his cerebral passions. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual; his guilt over leaving his family to come to America; his bond with his schizophrenic brother; and the writers and scientists—Thom Gunn, A. R. Luria, W. H. Auden, Gerald M. Edelman, Francis Crick—who influenced him. On the Move is the story of a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer—and of the man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human.