Editorial Review

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? 
          
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. ... Read more

Reviews

Thank you for this beautiful tribute to Henrietta Lacks, February 5, 2010
Wow. This book should be required reading for scientists and students of life. The true story of Henrietta Lacks and her family has finally been told, beautifully, in this book. The book encompasses science, ethics, and the story of a family who was terribly wronged in the pursuit of scientific research. I could gush about this book for pages but I'll try first to hit the main points of why this book is so remarkable in list form for the sake of brevity:


1. The author clearly developed a strong relationship with the Lacks family, which was absolutely critical to ensuring the story was told accurately and with the respect to Henrietta Lacks that was so deeply deserved.

2. The storytelling is amazingly moving despite the need to convey a lot of scientific information. It reads like fiction.

3. Ms. Skloot's research into the science is impeccable.

4. The book is FAIR. It presents the unvarnished truth, obtained DIRECTLY from as many prinicpal people involved in the story as is humanly possible. It would have been easier to simplify the story into heroes vs. villians, but Ms. Skloot deftly handles all sides of the story.


For some detail: I have worked with HeLa cells in the past, but did not know even the barest information about the story of Henrietta Lacks until a few years ago. It simply was not common knowledge, until a few less ethical folks released her name and medical records to the public. This obviously should not have been done without the express permission of the Lacks family, which Ms. Skloot obtained. In the past, others have not been as ethical. The book covers Ms. Lacks' early life, how her cells came to be harvested, and what happened to both the cells and her family afterward.

The contributions of HeLa cells to science are absolutely staggering and cannot be over-stated. The sections where the science was described were clear and accurate. With the story of Ms. Lacks' family interwoven, this book was fairly close to perfect. I found myself moved to tears several times because of the fate of the Lacks family and Henrietta's daughter's indomitable spirit. I do not think anyone but Ms. Skloot could have written this book. She worked with the family for over a decade in order to get the story right. This was critical, as the family had been wronged too many times in the past.

Thank you for this astounding work of art. I will be donating to the Henrietta Lacks foundation in honor of the entire family, and I hope many others will read the book and be similarly moved.

Captivating, engrossing, fascinating, heartbreaking, englightening...ALL in one stellar book!, January 16, 2010

2010 Non-Fiction Award Winner?, January 8, 2010

Absolutely superb, January 17, 2010

A fantastic effort about the life of a forgotten woman, March 14, 2010
Henrietta Lacks was born to an impoverished family of in rural Virginia in 1920. Her family worked on the same tobacco fields that their slave ancestors did during the preceding century, and after her mother died she grew up in her grandfather's dilapidated log cabin that served as slave quarters. She left school after the sixth grade to pick tobacco for ten cents per day on the farms of local whites. Henrietta had her first child with her first cousin Day at age 14, and they eventually married and moved to a small town outside of Baltimore during World War II so that Day could work at Bethlehem Steel for less than 80 cents an hour.

In early 1951, Henrietta went to the gynecology clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital after feeling a "knot" in her womb. After she was taken to a "Colored" examination room, the gynecologist on duty found a firm mass on her cervix that seemed cancerous, but was unlike anything he had ever seen. He sent a slice of the mass for analysis, and Henrietta was soon diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Henrietta returned to Johns Hopkins a few weeks later, where she underwent treatment for cervical cancer. She was given a generalized consent form that gave permission for her doctors to perform any operative procedures necessary to treat her illness. However, she was not told that one of the staff gynecologists was collecting specimens of clinic patients with cervical cancer for a clinical study, and biopsies of healthy and cancerous cervical tissues were taken from her during her initial procedure. The cancerous cells, which were named HeLa after the first two letters of Henrietta's first and last names, proved to be the first human cells that could be grown indefinitely in a nutrient broth, and the Johns Hopkins researchers were overjoyed at this long awaited success.

The treatment she received at Hopkins was state of the art, but was unsuccessful, due to the aggressive nature of her primary tumor, and she succumbed to her illness several months later. The researchers wanted to acquire more specimens from her tumor ridden body by performing an autopsy with biopsies. Her husband, after initially denying a request for an autopsy, was misled into agreeing to allow the Hopkins pathologists to perform a limited autopsy, after he was told that the doctors wanted to run tests that might help his children someday.

The HeLa cell line was provided to scientists and organizations worldwide for minimal cost, as neither the researchers nor Johns Hopkins profited from the first immortal human cell line. However, a number of companies made millions of dollars by mass producing HeLa and selling them at a much higher cost. HeLa was used in numerous important biomedical studies, including the development of the Salk polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh in the mid-1950s, cancer and viral research projects, and studies of the effects of weightlessness and space travel on the human body by NASA.

During this time Henrietta's husband and children were completely unaware that her cells had been harvested for medical research by the Hopkins doctors. By that time most of them were living in poverty in Baltimore, and were unable to afford basic health insurance. Articles about HeLa began to appear in medical journals and in the lay press, but it wasn't until 1973 that the family accidentally learned about the HeLa cell line. The family was contacted by Johns Hopkins, so that their cells could be analyzed and compared to those taken from Henrietta 22 years earlier. Once again they were misled into believing that the purpose of these tests was to determine if any of her children also had cancer, which caused Deborah, Henrietta's oldest surviving daughter, many years of anguish.

Once Henrietta's name was released in the media, the family was besieged by journalists and others wishing to profit from her story, causing her husband and children to become distrustful and wary.

Rebecca Skloot became interested in Henrietta Lacks after hearing about the HeLa cell line and its forgotten host as an undergraduate student. She spent many months and countless hours attempting to contact the Lacks family, and she slowly but painfully gained the trust of Deborah and her siblings, after she promised to tell the family's story alongside the history of HeLa.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fantastic achievement, given the hurdles that Skloot had to overcome to obtain information from the Lacks family, Johns Hopkins, and the other key actors in this story. In addition to an in-depth history of this ordinary yet quite remarkable family, she provides just the right amount of information about HeLa and what it meant for biomedical research, along with information about informed consent from the 1950s to the present, the effect of race on medical care in the United States and the views of African-Americans toward medical experimentation, and the biology of cancer. The book is meant for a lay audience, but it would be of interest to those with a formal medical background. I found the book to be a bit overly sentimental and personal at times, but this is a very minor criticism of a fabulous book.

5 star story, February 17, 2010
Just so id doesn't sound like I damn this book with faint praise, let me say that this was an excellent story told well (for the most part). I'll save the synopsis for others. Needless to say, Henrietta Lacks' story is just as gripping as the science that was done with her cells. You will most likely enjoy her story (as I did).

My criticisms:

The author spends a rather substantial portion of the book describing her own efforts. It didn't add to Henrietta's story and leaving it out would have made for a better, more concise narrative.

Black people were treated inhumanely to say the least (go look up the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study, for example). At the risk of sounding callous, this is well trod ground and some of it could also have been omitted for the sake of brevity without losing any of the story's impact.

Lastly, there is an implicit condemnation of the doctors that took her cells (the author does say that this was "common practice" at the time). I can tell you that as a former cancer patient who has been biopsied more times than I care to remember, once a doctor removes something from you, it's gone. They are not going to pay you for it.

Those criticism aside, this is a worthy read.

An astonishing scientific, sociological, racial exploration--and an engrossing work of art, December 28, 2009

Good try, but could have been better, July 31, 2010
I'm a big fan of science and medical non-fiction, so when I saw the rave reviews for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I was excited to read it. It started off strong; I'd give the first half five stars. The oral history of the Lacks family was fascinating, and I loved reading about how the cells got their start in the lab. When the author introduced the adult family (Deborah, et al), I felt a strong sympathy for them and what they'd been through. I was already recommending it to friends, anticipating that the second half would be as good.

However, once I got to the second half, it went downhill considerably. The writing was fairly tight in the beginning, keeping all of the stories woven together in a comprehensible way, but seemed to unravel as the book went on. When I read the introduction, I didn't understand why Skloot was so defensive about inserting herself into the book (in my experience, medical non-fiction authors do it all the time), but I soon realized why - because by the second half, the book becomes less about HeLa, science, history, and ethics, and instead turns exclusively into a memoir about Skloot's dealings with the family. And at this point, the family became unsympathetic and insufferable. The writing became repetitive, somewhat informal, and ridden with unnecessary details. One reviewer called this book "deftly written" and I'd have to disagree. The second half gets one star.

The book ended on a strong note, with the Afterward. The Afterward took us back to questions of bioethics. As I was reading it, I wondered why the Afterward was a separate part - couldn't it have been woven into the second half of the book?

In short, I thought this book was merely ok, but as the reviews show, a lot of people loved it. If you think that you're one of the people who will love it, read it. If you're looking for a book that's just outstanding, look somewhere else.

Is Immortality really worth the price?, January 21, 2010

Two different books, August 25, 2010
I enjoyed the first half of the book. It was informative and educational. The second half - not so much. It took a bad turn with the introduction of Deborah and their trip together. The author depicted her as a woman who has the mind of a hyperactive 5 year old with ADD. "Oh my god. . . . I did this to her?" Maybe. Maybe not. The book went from the scientific and factual to the land of superstition and sensationalism I was left with the impression the book was a collage of facts and embellished observations. It's a good idea to leave your readers for a desire for more. I was left with a desire for less. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave cut off her malignant breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer. ... Read more

Reviews

OFF THE CHARTS
You remember the scene in the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"? From the top of the bluff looking into the distance at dusk, Butch sees the lights of the pursuing posse which doesn't stop tracking them even at night and says "How many are following us? They're beginning to get on my nerves. Who are those guys?" In the same threatening way cancers have been dogging human beings since the dawn of time, and although we now know quite a lot about cancer we still don't really know "who are those guys" or how to shake them. And they sure are "beginning to get on our nerves" as Butch said. Almost one out of four of us will eventually wrestle with cancer -- the defining illness of our generation -- and lose our lives in the process. Until it catches up with us most of us will try to ignore this fact, just as when we were very young children alone in our bedroom trying to go to sleep at night we tried to ignore the monster that we sometimes feared might be lurking in our bedroom closet.

Enter oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee who almost parentally takes us by the hand to give us the courage to open with him the door to that dark and foreboding closet in order to see what is really lurking inside. Since eventually most of us are going to have to wrestle with this monster anyway -- either as a victim or as a loved one of a victim -- looking intelligently and closely into that dark closet does diminish fear and enhance wise perspective. And on this incredible journey into the depths of that darkness, what an absolutely marvelous guide is this modern day Virgil called Siddharta Mukherjee as he leads us on this long and often harrowing journey through the swarth that cancer has cut through mankind throughout time.

Mukherjee is a veritable kaleidoscope. Turn his writing one way and you experience him as an exciting writer of page-turning detective stories or mystery stories; turn him another and he's a highly effective communicator of cellular biology; turn him a third and you get superb science writing; turn him a fourth and he has the grandeur and broad sweep of an excellent historian. It's hard to believe that this one book, combining all of these appealing characteristics, is the work of just one man. And underlying it all is his sterling medical training and credentials which have been enumerated often elsewhere.

The book itself is a tour de force. It is the first book of such extraordinary scope regarding cancer. Its architectural structure brings to mind Melville's Moby Dick and how effectively and artfully Melville braided together the three strands of his great classic: a grand adventure story, the technology of whaling, and a treatise of humanity and philosophy. Equally effectively does Mukherjee weave together all the various facets of this iconic disease throughout history, from describing cancer from the patient's perspective, to viewing the never ending battles of physicians and medical researchers with cancer over the centuries, to examining the mysteries of the cellular nature of cancer itself and what really goes on in there, to the pro and con impact of this never ending plague on the spirit of the individual human and on our race as a whole, to peering into a crystal ball for a glance of cancer's and our future together. While doing all of this the alchemy of Mukherjee's writing continually turns science into poetry and poetry into science.

Simply put, it is so good, and so incandescently clear and lucid, and so powerful, and so engrossing, and so easily consumed that you will not lay it down without someone or circumstances forcing you to.

Had I read this book in my teens I would have found my life's career. I can only imagine that while you are reading this book, somewhere there will be some very young teenage girl or boy who will also be reading it at the same time you are, and who will become totally hooked by this book just as you will be, and who will go on to make a career in cancer research, a career that might provide the breakthrough that humanity has been searching and hoping for all of these many centuries. Thus although you will never know it, you will have "been there" at the initial motivation of that person and thus indirectly present at the earliest genesis of the eventual great idea.

This book has THAT potential. It is THAT good.

Kenneth E. MacWilliams

The Burden, The Mass, Onkos
In the United States one in three women and one in two men will develop cancer in their lifetime. Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, a medical oncologist, has written a definitive history of cancer. It may be one of the best medical books I have read. Complex but simple in terms of understanding. A timeline of a disease and those who waged the wars. In 1600 BC the first case of probable breast cancer was documented. In the thousands of years since, the Greek word, 'onkos', meaning mass or burden, has become the disease of our time. Cancer. The title of the book, is "a quote from a 19Th century physician" Dr Mukherjee had found inscribed in a library book that "cancer is the emperor of all maladies, the king of our terrors".

As a health care professional and as a woman who is six years post breast cancer, Cancer has played a big part in my life. I used to walk by the Oncology clinic, and quicken my pace. I used to give chemotherapy to my patients, before it was discovered that the chemo was so toxic that it needed to be made under sterile conditions and given by professionals who specialized in Oncology. Dr Mukherjee, wisely discusses cancer in the context of patients, those of us who suffer. After all it is because of the patients, the people who have gone before us, who have contracted some form of cancer, they are the base of this science.

Dr Mukherjee started his immersion in cancer medicine at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He relates the beginning of the study of ALL, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, by Dr Sidney Farber in 1947. Dr Farber, a pathologist at the time decided to change his focus and start caring for patients. He was given a medication to trial for ALL, and though most of his patients died, some survived to remission. This opened his world and with the help of Mary Lasker, and Charles E Dana, philanthropists, they opened one of the first clinics that specialized in cancer care and research, The Dana Farber Cancer Center. Dr Mukherjee gives us the timeline of ALL and lymphomas and the medications that turned into chemotherapy. The development of specific care for blood cancers and the emergence of AIDS and patient activism. He discusses the surgery for breast cancer. It was thought that the more radical the surgery the better the outcomes. We now know that lumpectomies have an excellent outcome. But, women before me had a radical removal of breast, chest tissue, lymph nodes and sometimes ribs. The lesson learned is that breast cancer is very curable now and all those men and women, the patients who suffered, gave us the answers and cancer care has moved on.

The onslaught of chemotherapies changed the face of cancer, and the 1970's served us well. In 1986 the first outcomes of cancer care were measured. Tobacco emerged as an addiction and soon lung cancer was a leading cause of death. Presidential Commissions ensued, politics entered the world of cancer, the war against cancer and the war against smoking. The Pap smear was developed, and prevention came to the fore. The two sides of cancer, the researchers and the physicians at the bedside, who often thought never the twain shall meet, recognized the importance of research to bedside.

The story of the boy 'Jimmy' from New Sweden, Maine, became the face of childhood cancer. The Jimmy Fund, a Boston Red Sox charity in Boston, is still going strong today. 'Jimmy' opened the door to the public for the need for money and research, and care for those with cancer. We follow Dr Mukherjee with one of his first patients, Carla, from her diagnosis through her treatment. He has given a face to cancer. We all know someone with cancer, those who survived and those who did not. Cancer prevention is now the wave of the future.

"Cancer is and may always be part of the burden we carry with us," says Dr Mukherjee. He has now written a "biography of cancer" for us, those without special medical knowledge. However, he does go astray in some discussions such as genetics. I have an excellent medical background, and found I was floundering at times. As I discovered,and Dr. Mukherjee agrees, our patients are our heroes. They/we withstand the horrors of cancer, and the horrific, sometimes deadly treatments. The stories of his patients make us weep, and the complex decision making about their care make him the most caring of physicians.

The 'quest for the cure' is the basis of all science and research, and Dr Mukherjee has written a superb tome in language that we can all attempt to understand. The biography of Cancer. Cancer may always be with us,Dr Mukherjee hopes that we outwit this devil and survive.


Highly Recommended. prisrob 11-13-10

Jimmy Fund of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, The (MA) (Images of America)

Early Detection: Women, Cancer, and Awareness Campaigns in the Twentieth-Century United States

The Everyman Book of Cancer
The brilliance of this book is the effortlessness with which the author draws the reader into the world of cancer and keeps him there as a tourist or witness. Dr. Mukherjee's engaging style, precision of prose and overwhelming compassion imbue this work with an energy that carries the reader along a ride like none other.

Whether the reader is a basic scientist or sociologist, a patient or healthcare provider, a philosopher or philanderer, this book will appeal, entertain and educate.

A remarkable achievement.

"Cancer was an all-consuming presence in our lives."
Siddhartha Mukherjee's monumental "The Emperor of All Maladies" meticulously outlines the trajectory of cancer (derived from the Greek word "karkinos," meaning crab) over thousands of years, starting in ancient Egypt. In 2010, seven million people around the world will die of cancer. Many have experienced the horrors of this disease through personal experience. The author provides us with a global view of this "shape-shifting entity [that is] imbued with such metaphorical and political potency that it is often described as the definitive plague of our generation."

In "The Emperor of All Maladies," we meet a variety of patients, doctors, scientists, and activists. We also hear the voices of such iconic figures as Susan Sontag, author of "Illness as Metaphor," and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose "Cancer Ward" is a desolate and isolating "medical gulag." Cancer is such a complex subject that it can only be understood by examining it in all of its facets: through myths, the anguish of its victims, and the untiring efforts of its adversaries, both past and present, some of whom were well-meaning but horribly misguided. Mukherjee says in his author's note that he has made an effort to be "simple but not simplistic." In this he has succeeded.

Ancient physicians thought that such invisible forces as "miasmas" and "bad humors" caused cancers. Many years of experimentation, studies of human anatomy, laboratory work, and clinical trials have shown cancer to be a "pathology of excess" that originates from the uncontrolled growth of a single cell. Cancer is "unleashed by mutations--changes in DNA that specifically affect genes that incite unlimited cell growth." What treatment to use--surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or a combination of these approaches--is rarely an easy decision. Equally significant are the efforts of public health officials, who seek to reduce cancer's mortality through early detection (mammography and colonoscopy, among others, are screening methods in use today). In addition, cancer may be prevented by encouraging people to avoid environmental carcinogens such as cigarette smoke.

This elegant and heartrending narrative is far more than a biography of a terrible malady. It is also a story of paternalism, arrogance, and false hope, as well as inventiveness, determination, and inspiration. We meet Sidney Farber, who pioneered a chemotherapeutic approach to leukemia in children during the 1940's and helped launch "the Jimmy Fund"; William Halstead who, in the nineteenth century, disfigured women with radical mastectomies that, in many cases, were not curative; Paul Ehrlich, who discovered a "magic bullet" to combat syphilis from a derivative of chemical dyes; Mary Lasker, a powerful businesswoman and socialite who zealously raised money and political awareness in what would become a national war on cancer; and George Papanicolaou, a Greek cytologist, whose Pap smear "changed the spectrum of cervical cancer." Mukherjee constantly moves back and forth in time, showing how the past and the present are closely interconnected.

Throughout the book, Dr. Mukherjee's keeps returning to one of his patients, thirty-six year old Carla Long. In 2004, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. Carla would have a long road ahead of her, one filled with pain, fear, and uncertainty. We look to the future with cautious optimism that even greater progress will be made in our never-ending battle against a treacherous and multi-pronged enemy. Mukherjee is a brilliant oncologist, gifted writer, scrupulous researcher, and spellbinding storyteller. "The Emperor of All Maladies" is a riveting, thought-provoking, and enlightening work that deserves to become an instant classic.

All In favor say "Aye"
There seems little left to say so I'll take a different tack, look to another facet of this book and its author.

Today I heard Dr. Mukherjee interviewed on the Terry Gross show (Fresh Air - NPR), where the topic, the book, was biased in favor of the author ... and a wonderful treat it was. While I am interested in cancer and progress toward cure, the fascinating aspect of today's experience was the man himself. In all the interviews of all the interviewers I've listened in on - mostly literary in nature - I've never heard a more articulate responder than Mukherjee. He's a poet. His choice of words slice in toward meaning like the scalpel itself. He avoids vagueness and ambiguity, courts acuracy and precsion like no one I've heard. He is a treat just to listen to, never mind his insights into the disease, it's history and possible future.

I ordered this book today in order to get more of his artistry but I wouldn't discourage those seeking the phycician's prowess - that is there too. If I should be in that 25% that ends up with cancer, I would hope Dr. Mukherjee would be there to consult with me and console.

As magentic as a biography can be
As a work of scholarship, this book is just tremendous. Mukherjee traces the history of our understanding of cancer from 2500 BC to present-day. He writes of political battles for public attention, incredible wiles in the biology of the disease, and schisms among the researchers sent to conquer it. All major developments are present and sourced in sixty pages of footnotes. From this grand historical scope, Mukherjee has crafted a tight and coherent narrative that I found very difficult to put down. I'm aware of no lay-account of cancer with anything approaching the level of depth present here. This book is one-of-a-kind.

Like anything so vast, it isn't quite perfect. Certain structural changes would benefit fluency, though they've no impact on my unqualified recommendation.

* More humanizing characteristics and quotations. Smaller researchers, and occasionally even key players, are summed by little more than what they've accomplished. There are perhaps a hundred contributors that Mukherjee covers, but with exception to a handful that have had tens of pages devoted to them or some peculiar eccentricity, they're interchangeable and unmemorable.

* A more even balance between discovery and those stricken by cancer. Mukherjee is at his best when he's describing the struggles of his own patients. These stories are touching, personal, and an intensely interesting ground-level foil to the bird's eye view of much of the book. The retrospective of cancer discovery is so vast and detailed that these rare moments where the story reverts to the present can feel like an oasis.

Roughly half of The Emperor is comprised of five and ten-page vignettes where Mukherjee poses a question ("If XY, then could XYZ ... ?") and resolves it with the travails of a researcher ("Person Q, a scientist at H, noticed ..."). These accounts are often gripping, especially as advances accelerate in the mid-1980s, but sets of four or five in a series are enough to cause my attention to drift.

* A different ending. In the final chapters, Mukherjee suggests he'd originally intended to conclude with the death of a particular patient. By serendipity, that patient was still living in late 2009. Given the great strides in cancer survival and the sense he conveys that genetics may well provide the magic bullets that so occupied the fantasies of early researchers, concluding on a high note would have been within the spirit of the book. Instead, Mukherjee describes another patient that did in fact die. This person was not previously introduced. She was a better fit for the narrative, but including her account for that purpose didn't strike the right tone to me.

Structure aside, I'd like to have seen Mukherjee become more of a prognosticator in later chapters. I was reeling at the sheer mass of information on display by the last page, but I also felt as if I'd accumulated a great depth of trivia with little binding glue to the present. There probably aren't a hundred people alive in a better position than the author to comment on the state of cancer research, to predict, or to theorize in new directions. But these insights are spare.

These points aside, if you've even a tangential interest in cancer or biology, Mukherjee's opus remains a must-read.

Spectacular insight into the most feared of all diseases
This is a spectacular book. I read 100 books a year and this is definitely in the top 10. It is very, very well written and, in some ways, it is like a mystery. The way the book is written, we follow the stream of research and clinical medical treatment over 150 years. It's like feeling around in the dark for a bomb that we know will go off. It is simultaneously horrifying and compelling. I am a doctor and think I am compassionate towards my patients. This book increased my compassion 10X. What surprised me the most was the politics involved in attempting to cure a disease that potentially affects everyone. Surgeons want to cut and oncologists want to drug. They each have their turf and don't want to give it up. The fact that 50% of all men and 33% of all women will get some form of cancer before they die is a very sobering one. The section on the evilness of the tobacco industry was particularly illuminating. I can't put the book down and will truly be sad when it is finished.

Fantastic insight into the science behind medical research
Great book, I will read it again. I love learning and understanding the thought processes, errors and vast achievements of all aspects of scientific research, particularly medicine. This book does not disappoint. The author leans somewhat heavily on his thesaurus, be prepared to dig around in the dictionary. However, great history and insight into the scientific method. A fascinating peek into the mind of a scientist and a clinician. Must read.

The New Standard for Cancer Stories
It is difficult to even imagine the stacks of reports, articles, notes and interviews that Dr. Mukherjee processed to produce this fabulous book. Each page explains, in very readable prose, complex, arcane subjects. For anyone looking for reason to hope that their cancer is curable, this book is trove of stories of lives saved and changed by the work of cancer researchers.
This book will be referenced in other works for a long time. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association" is the style manual of choice for writers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides invaluable guidance on all aspects of the writing process, from the ethics of authorship to the word choice that best reduces bias in language. Well-known for its authoritative and easy-to-use reference and citation system, the Publication Manual also offers guidance on choosing the headings, tables, figures, and tone that will result in strong, simple, and elegant scientific communication. The sixth edition offers new and expanded instruction on publication ethics, statistics, journal article reporting standards, electronic reference formats, and the construction of tables and figures. The sixth edition has been revised and updated to include: new ethics guidance on such topics as determining authorship and terms of collaboration, duplicate publication, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, disguising of participants, validity of instrumentation, and making data available to others for verification; new journal article reporting standards to help readers report empirical research with clarity and precision; simplified APA heading style to make it more conducive to electronic publication; updated guidelines for reducing bias in language to reflect current practices and preferences, including a new section on presenting historical language that is inappropriate by present standards; new guidelines for reporting inferential statistics and a significantly revised table of statistical abbreviations; and, new instruction on using supplemental files containing lengthy data sets and other media. This book includes significantly expanded content on the electronic presentation of data to help readers understand the purpose of each kind of display and choose the best match for communicating the results of the investigation, with new examples for a variety of data displays, including electro physiological and biological data. It offers consolidated information on all aspects of reference citations, with an expanded discussion of electronic sources emphasizing the role of the digital object identifier (DOI) as a reliable way to locate information. It features expanded discussion of the publication process, including the function and process of peer review. It contains a discussion of ethical, legal, and policy requirements in publication; and guidelines on working with the publisher while the article is in press. Key to this edition of the Publication Manual is an updated and expanded Web presence. Look up additional supplemental material keyed to this book. This book lets you test your knowledge of APA Style with a free tutorial on style basics. It lets you learn about the changes in the sixth edition with a free tutorial reviewing key revisions. Sign up for an on-line course to enrich and enhance your understanding of APA Style. Read the APA Style blog and share your comments on writing and referencing. Consult frequently asked questions to sharpen your understanding of APA Style. This title lets you examine additional resources on such topics as ethics, statistics, and writing. It lets you familiarize yourself with submission standards for APA books and journals. ... Read more

Reviews

BEWARE! Many pages of corrections have been issued!, October 7, 2009
I just received my copy. As a psychology professor, this text is required for my bookshelf--the same is true for students in this field. However, I was upset to learn that APA has already issued 7 typewritten pages of corrections to this manual, and they will not exchange the first printing for a newer print. This is a resource that you will use for years! Wait to purchase until the kinks have been ironed out and they are on a second or third printing of the manual! I am also disappointed that they do not clearly delineate the changes from the 5th edition. It looks to me that there are few important changes (2 spaces between sentences, etc.). Save your money for at least a few more months!

Greatly Disappointed, October 14, 2009
I was very irritated to find that many errors existed in the 6th edition. I also contacted APA regarding the errors. They are not going to exchange the book for a corrected edition. They made several lame excuses for the errors and for not replacing it. My second email to APA pointedly expressed my displeasure with their stance - copied below...

To have grammar and writing errors in a book about grammar and writing is shameful. How much does your organization really care about the reputation it is presenting? Do you have editors reviewing your works before publication? Are your editors paying attention to their work? If you cannot hold yourself to the standards you have set out in your own publication, then your publications should not exist!


If you need this book, demand a corrected reprinting! If you are a university, you also demand a corrected reprint. This organization should not set standards they are not going to comply with. I give them an "F"

Do Not Buy, Join the Boycott!, October 20, 2009
Do not buy the first printing of the APA manual, 6th edition under any circumstances. There are errors on eighty (80) of its pages. How outrageous for a manual on writing style! As of 10/20/09, APA refuses to exchange their error full copies with corrected second printings. Despite the fact that the list of errors goes on for 7 pages, the Editorial Director of APA books stated "there are no errors that impede using the manual with full confidence." Many of the errors are in the sample papers -- a part of the manual so many of us use as an important reference. The abuse of power that APA is wielding over students required to purchase this book for classes, along with graduate students and professors who must write in this style for journals is alarming. APA goes on to state that with its 80 pages of errors in this edition that "it is within my control, as a true expert who has been intimately involved with each stage of this project, to verify for you without hesitation that the first printing is correct, accurate, and fully functional." As a Professor, when I grade papers, I say to my students that 3 APA errors will get them docked 1/2 a letter grade. If I were to grade this APA manual, it would not only get an F, there aren't enough letters in the alphabet to go low enough for the number of errors it contains. Meanwhile, APA is happy to take everyone's money for the book they know we all have to purchase in so many fields of study.

A formal boycott of this edition is underway on Facebook until APA agrees to replace the copies of the first edition that people are now stuck with. Please join us [...]

All is well, January 10, 2010
Given all the emotional responses around the mistakes in the new edition, I was worried about ordering my copy. However, it just arrived, and as promised, it's the corrected version (the second printing) of the 6th edition. The changes to the style included in the manual are an improvement, particularly in the way electronic resources are cited. Additionally, the organization of this edition is better. Overall, I'm pleased.

Unhelpful Guide about an Unenlightening Style, May 6, 2004
Like some of the other reviewers, I am in a program of advanced study in which APA is the "accepted" style of citation for scholarly research. As we can see, APA is an absolutely dreadful citation style, especially with its prohibition of footnotes, leading to incomprehensible paragraphs in which your prose is murdered by names and dates in parentheses. The lack of required page numbers in your citations also allows you, if you're so inclined, to transform your references into all sorts of unsupported speculation and conjecture, and no reader will be able to prove or disprove what you're saying. I realize that arguing about the merits of APA style is not the same as reviewing the merits of this book. But the weaknesses in the core citation style are so prevalent that it would be impossible to create a book of this nature with any sort of usefulness.

Now let's get to the trouble with this particular book. First, it is unnecessarily humungous, trying to beef up the very thin body of APA citation requirements (which by the way can be found for free all over the internet) with hugely unenlightening chapters on basic writing style and methods. Infinitely better guides on how to actually write and conduct research can be easily found elsewhere. Even when you do want to find instructions on the core requirements of APA citation style, this is an annoyingly difficult task in this atrociously organized and indexed book. A thin and under-compiled index sends you to hard-to-find section numbers rather than page numbers. And finally there is the practice of this book's publishers to promote a "new edition" which is merely the same as before with a couple of new entries, sold with a new cover and of course a new full price. In case you're wondering, about the only new information in this edition concerns how to reference websites and online publications. Once again, this info can be found for free on the internet, while you could also spend a pittance on a used copy of the supposedly "outdated" previous edition.

This book gets two stars because it is nominally useful (at least in theory) if you're stuck with it. But if you find yourself required to use the talent-crushing APA style in your attempts to write something of importance, first try to convince your mentors that APA is inherently anti-intellectual. Then find a way to get out of any requirements to buy this unhelpful book, and find the information on the internet instead. [~doomsdayer520~]

5th Edition APA Publication Manual, October 17, 2002
Even though there are only a few changes to the 5th edition, I would recommend getting it. It is too confusing to use an older edition especially if you are pressed for time or have never used this type of manual before.

Also I recommend marking your book with tabs such as in the "Reference Citations in Text" section or the "Reference List" chapter. Marking the book with tabs helped me find my way to the information that I needed over and over again. I've tended to use the same type of references throughout my graduate courses.

Small changes, big headaches, October 14, 2001
As an ABD-PhD candidate who's required to use APA format (and halfway through a dissertation using APA 4th edition), the small changes in this latest edition do little to add clarity and readability to a manuscript, but much to frustrate: Underlining references has been replaced with italics; after utilizing first-line indents in a Reference list (easier for a word processor) we've now gone back to second-line hanging indents; and none of these changes are clearly discussed in a "Revisions in the 5th Edition" chapter, you need to find them on your own in each chapter. I appreciate the updated guide for citing electronic resources, but the remainder seems to be aimed at "buy yet-another version" rather than major improvements and substantive changes. Maddening! If you're required to use it, you're stuck. Otherwise, keep the old 4th edition.

Very Difficult, But Necessary, September 16, 2003
Out of all the stylebooks I have had occasion to use as a professional editor, I have found this one to be the most difficult to follow and understand--the most difficult to master.

I am not a psychologist, but I am a professional medical editor, and I feel sorry for those who must follow this style when writing theses, articles, book chapters, and other items for publication. In addition, I find some of the APA's requirements (particularly in the references, which have their own unique style quite unlike most others) incomprehensible.

That having been said, this book is a must for those who want to be published by the APA, and those who are editing for same. Once it has been read many times, and key passages put to memory, it is not as hard to understand--but it shouldn't be so hard. The section on figures and tables, however, is a truly excellent primer, for any professional writer, not just those in the health care professions.

My grade: C plus.

Much better than previous editions..., August 18, 2009
Easier to read with a lot less pages. The 6th edition is a mere 272 pages vs. a whopping 439 pages in the 5th edition. This improves its portability and lap-use. ( I never could understand why a book that insists on 1 inch margins all around used 1.5 inch margin on the outer margins and left so much wasted unused space on the pages).

Material has been streamlined to reflect more of the electronic resources currently being used and the more obscure material has been consolidated. The newly added chapters on ethics, the publication process and journal article reporting standards are quite helpful. Some reviewers complained about the elimination of the chapters on writing for publication. Since each journal has it's own specific criteria for manuscript submission, I don't consider this a huge loss. Still has lots of sample for various references (and even includes video blog sources like you-tube) and information on how to display data results (Including radiologic and imaging data like MRI images)

So glad I bought the newest version, especially since it's currently half the price of the old version and a lot more user friendly and up to date. If you required to use the APA style, I strongly suggest buying this book.

Here we go again!, February 18, 2002
Here we go again... more minor changes to APA style! The hanging indent is back, we don't have to type long lists of author names anymore, and we can now use parentheses (woo-hoo!).

If you need to prepare manuscripts in APA style and don't have a previous edition of the manual, then you need this book. Though it remains relatively user-unfriendly, it is nonetheless the bible of manuscript preparation.

If you already have the fourth edition... determine how many of the changes in the fifth edition apply to your work. If you mostly write "plain vanilla" research reports and your reference lists mostly consist of ordinary journal articles, you may be able to get by with some handwritten notes in the margins of your old book. ... Read more

Editorial Review

“An engaging and compelling read that illustrates how the new brain science can help us understand elements of our basic humanity.”

–Zindel Segal, Author of The Mindful Way through Depression and  Cameron Wilson Chair in Depression Studies at the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

“Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald has given us a remarkably clear and engaging account of the ways that the new brain imaging technologies can give us deep insights into our gravest maladies. Her conclusion, that healing may often lie with us, joins science with the wisdom of the ages.”

–Jonathan D. Moreno, Author of Mind Wars, David and Lyn Silfen University Professor, and Professor of Medical Ethics and of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania

Who are we?

What’s going on inside us when we think, feel, hope, or imagine?

Can we change?

Can we become happier, smarter, healthier, more altruistic–better?

For thousands of years, people have wondered about questions like these. Now, using the latest brain scanning technologies, neuroscientists can watch your brain at work–and they’re amazed by what they’re seeing. Now, you can see it, too. Pictures of the Mind presents the images that are revolutionizing neuroscience and offers you a personal tour of the frontiers of brain research.

You’ll discover why scientists are becoming increasingly excited about your brain’s abilities to keep growing, learning, changing, and healing, all through life. You’ll follow cutting-edge researchers as they blaze new trails toward potential cures for everything from depression to dementia and brain injury to addiction. And you’ll preview what could become the greatest scientific revolution of all: the one that finally explains mind, emotion, and consciousness.

Reviews

Full of surprises about how the brain works, and inspiration for the brain's potential, March 12, 2010
In this book, scientist Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald reports the latest on fMRI scanners and what they reveal to neuroscientists. The brain, once thought to be fixed and locked in after a certain age, is now known to be plastic and to regenerate. This neuroplasticity can give us great hope for people with injuries, addictions, memory problems, etc.

The journey begins with a British woman who was thought to be in a PVS (persistent vegetative state) but found to be conscious the entire time, but unable to communicate. The book highlights cases of various states, such as a young athlete who had everything a young man could want until after a tragic accident. He has since been left in LIS (locked-in syndrome). People have conceptions that such people would want to die, but most of them find something to live for and ways to communicate, even if just by blinking.

Moral dilemmas appear as we learn more about the brain. For example, one part of the brain rules morality and how we rationalize our moral decisions. Can we really hold accountable someone whose brain is different than the norm, thus leading to a crime? We are on the verge of being able to wipe out painful memories. Should we erase memories that ruin the lives of people with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)? Or would we abuse that as drug companies encourage us to expand the definition of PTSD to include bad relationships? (Think of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which this happened!) How could people learn from their pain, gaining empathy, if every painful memory were eradicated?

Another chapter informs us on where addiction takes place in the brain. People who have had this part damaged (the insula) have been able to stop smoking cigarettes effortlessly! The book discusses how crystal meth damages the brain; yet the brain is able, given time, to repair itself to a great extent.

The book is full of surprises about the brain. For example, in one person, whose corpus callosum has been totally severed, there is no connection harmonizing the left and right brains. One researcher asked such people if they believed in God. The right brain would say "yes" but the left brain (analytical part) would say "no." The scientist performing the experiment noted that one hemisphere of the brain is an atheist, while the other is a believer, and this finding should have shaken the theological community to the core. "If this person dies, what happens? Does one hemisphere go to heaven and the other go to hell?"

The author saves the best for last: The last chapter deals with the mystical parts of the brain (the temporal lobes; people with seizures have all kinds of mystical experiences); the brain on meditation; the sense of merging with the cosmos and there being no separate self. We are shown how the power of simply paying attention to the breath affects the brain, and virtually all religions have noticed that.

This book leaves you with hope and inspiration that, whether you are brain damaged or healthy, you have the ability and potential to do more and go further.

Pictures of the Mind: a combination of neurology, psychology, and a how-to on happiness, February 10, 2010
I actually found this book randomly in the Kindle store while looking for books about Anne Boleyn, and decided to buy it on a whim due to a growing interest in neurology.

I'm glad I did.

This book taught me about the amazing possibilities and future of fMRI, but I also learned about just how important living in the present, as well as compassion and empathy, are to happiness.

As someone who suffers from extreme anxiety, i am deeply appreciative of the lessons I learned in this book. I have been walking down the crowded, stressful streets of San Francisco sending mental messages of "May you be free of suffering and all that causes it" towards strangers that usually scare me, and have found that love defeats all fear.

Thank you for writing this book and sharing your research with me. I can not express in words just how much it has helped free me from suffering, and may you be free of all suffering as well.

Fascinating!, November 26, 2010
This book describes in very readable terms, the basic findings of recent research of the mind using fMRI imaging. Have you ever known someone that suffers (or has suffered) from anxiety disorders, coma, traumatic brain injuries? You need to look at this book! I picked it up on a whim and am so glad I did! This book does not give the "answers" but it explores research regarding the minds of "normal" people, those with Alzheimers, the aging mind, convicted criminals, teenagers, victims of traumatic brain injuries, etc. Absolutely fascinating and very informative! You will never look at people (especially "annoying" or "scary" people) the same after you read this!

Early review, not finished yet., December 14, 2010
I have not finished this yet but still would like to recommend it for anyone having
interest in the working of the brain and the latest technology and findings.
There are also suggestions such as a meditation technique that I have tried and find
effectual. I look forward to reading more.
It is in plain english and very easy to understand. It explains the technology and
findings in a way very easy to understand for a lay person. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Trigger point therapy is one of the most intriguing and fastest-growing bodywork styles in the world. Medical doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, and massage therapists are all beginning to use this technique to relieve formerly undiagnosable muscle and joint pain—conditions that studies have shown to be the cause of nearly 25 percent of all doctor visits. The technique involves applying short, repeated massage strokes to trigger points, tiny contraction knots in muscle tissue where restricted circulation and lack of oxygen cause referred pain. Trigger points create pain throughout the body in predictable patterns characteristic to each muscle, producing discomfort ranging from mild to severe. Trigger point massage increases circulation and oxygenation in the area and often produces instant relief. This dynamic technique has made a huge impact among health professionals and the public alike, becoming an overnight classic in the field of pain relief. The book has sold over 220,000 copies since the release of the first edition in 2001. The second edition is a complete update and includes a new chapter specifically for massage professionals, as well as a chapter on systematic muscle relaxation techniques that can reinforce the therapeutic power of trigger point work. ... Read more

Reviews

Excellent Book (not Quackery), January 27, 2004
I was really worried that this book might have been a standard new-age, make-a-buck, quack title. Thank goodness that turned out to be a groundless worry. This is an excellent book (with medical references) that does a very good job of helping you get rid of pain. I had hurt my lower back by performing the arduous task of putting on my underwear. The doctors and physical therapist couldn't really come up with a reason for it. After a month, it still wasn't getting any better. Searching the web gave me references to this book. Within three days of reading it and poking around in my UPPER (not LOWER) back, my thighs, and my abdomen, the pain has faded to just a reminder. I'm still not able to bend and reach like I used to. But, I'm exercising and stretching again, so hopefully that'll change. Best of all, it no longer hurts just to SIT (or lie down or stand, for that matter). After showing my wife that her lower body has just about every active trigger point known, she's also reading the book and working on her points. Hopefully, her pain will reduce in a couple of days, too.

The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is that it's kind of hard to find and reference ALL the trigger points associated with a specfic pain FOR THE FIRST TIME. The book does have a diagram for pain locations at the start of each chapter. But, in many cases, the pain will be caused by multiple trigger points in multiple body locations. It takes quite a bit of paging through the book to figure out what you're supposed to do. Once you figure it out, though, the book is great. Of course, in the author's defense, I can't come up with a better organization method outside of having some kind of software with an anatomical display using hyperlinks.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book if you suffer from any kind of chronic pain. Even if your doctor has pronounced judgement that he/she knows what's causing things, try this book. As the author says, trigger point therapy should be the first course of treatment: it's easy and cheap.

SAVED MY LIFE, November 15, 2005
After a full year of severe dysfunction of my right hand, arm, and particularly my right thumb THE TRIGGER POINT THERAPY WORKBOOK revealed to me the astonishing fact that most of my trouble was being caused by 'trigger points' in the scalene muscles of my neck and also in the area above my clavicle. What could I do about it? Simply massage them away - within half an hour of hitting the correct locations my right thumb (and hand and arm) seemed to heal by about 60%! The rest of the healing took maybe 3 more weeks of finding these things and methodically deactivating them.

Other muscles besides the scalene were involved and Clair Davies had them all referenced in the back of the book under "thumb". This is the case for any body part you may need help with, it is all very accessible and easy to find. Needless to say, this book was a miracle in my life - providing a simple solution to a debilitating problem that seemingly did not HAVE any solution (no doctor, acupuncturist, or even most up-to-date-book on repetitive strain injuries seemed to hit upon this stunning information). I went from abject misery to basically playing this strange video game of hunting out and zapping away all these trigger points hidden in my muscles.

I found this book fairly late in the healing process, and so it's important to note that another book, IT'S NOT CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME! helped me immensely with all of the problems I had that did NOT include trigger points - I would even say that my left side (arm, hand) had healed already by studying what I found in that book alone. But the trigger points were the missing piece.

I want to thank the reviewer who suggested getting the book spiral-bound at kinko's so it will lie flat and xeroxing the cover so you can pass it out to everyone you know without lending it (I gave my first copy away but discovered I need the book on an ongoing basis).

I discovered that the book actually has its own website, which you can find by searching 'trigger points' on google. I suggest reading ALL about the book there yourself, and if you think it might help you ordering from amazon because it is cheaper. Even once you have the book, the website makes the info. very accessible.

At a certain point, I started to dot the hard-to-find trigger points on my skin with a marker. It may look bizarre but they can be hard to keep track of and you want to get all of them.

DON'T OVERLOOK THE SECTION ON PROGRESSIVE MUSCLE RELAXATION, even if massaging trigger points seems to be enough to cure you.

The scalene trigger points can be HARD to find. At first I found them easily, but months later my symptoms came back and after 2 weeks of despair I found a terrible trigger point that was almost completely hidden in the scalene, I could only reach it after hitting the muscle at a particular angle.

Underline as you go along! Here and there he mentions areas of referred pain that are NOT depicted in the illustration.

Very relevant pages I xeroxed and taped to the wall.

Again, SOME aspects of Repetitive Strain Injury are not brought about by trigger points, so everyone w/computer related injuries needs to look at IT'S NOT CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME! by Suparna Damany and Jack Bellis and also the books by Emil Pascarelli. If you have REAL nerve damage, trigger point therapy may ease some of your discomfort but it won't resolve the problem.

Those with back problems might want to look into John Sarno's MINDBODY PRESCRIPTION. Maybe even those w/out back problems - however this recommendation is based on other people's experiences not my own.

Other books I used: Conquering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (by Sharon Butler & also her online book about DeQuervain's of the thumb), Your Body's Many Cries for Water, Tendon & Ligament Healing, Free Your Breath Free Your Life...and the PBS program Priscilla's Yoga Stretches (not a book, it is apparently shown in many parts of the US). Some of these I got from the library, but being that my HANDS were at stake I would have just put them all on a credit card if I had had no other choice. I also recommend spending time between the shelves of Barnes & Noble.

If you happen to live in Los Angeles, Janet Travell & David Simon's medical volumes, upon which Clair Davies' work is based, are available at the Central Library (one reference set, and one that you can actually check out). Don't know about other major cities - but they're beautiful, exquisite books and amazingly clear.

Finally, I am just now looking into Bonnie Prudden's books particularly 'MYOTHERAPY' from 1984- and I am surprised because while they are missing key components of The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook they offer insights about trigger points that I have not found in other places. She quotes Janet Travell often, and there is great spirit in her book.

There is no way to express my gratitude to Clair Davies, et al, for making this info. available to the world. I am literally better off knowing about trigger points than I would be had I won a million dollars.

It's a crime that this info has been around for over a quarter of a century & the medical world has not yet grabbed a hold of it.

Good luck everyone!

January 8th, 2006 update: After all that I now have something more to add: I did actually have more trouble getting over a recent relapse than I would have expected, and I have been greatly helped by a massage therapist who is actually very familiar with trigger point therapy. In addition to trigger points, he has been helping me with other forms of massage therapy & guidance on how to rehabilitate my muscles without overdoing it. After being so injured for a long time it is great to have professional guidance in conjunction with self-applied trigger point therapy. He knew about this book & appreciated how well-informed I was - unlike certain doctors I have spoken with who seemed to take offense at my attempt to do my own research! In summary: use this book and if necessary, try to find a great massage therapist as well.

one more thing: the book is almost entirely viewable in google books! also, it has its own website triggerpointbook dot com.

All Massage Therapists Should Own and Use This Book, May 1, 2001
Clair Davies is really on to something here. I deal with chronic pain in my massage therapy practice daily. I've been able to help my clients, using Clair's methods, to rid themselves of pain they've dealt with for years. Clair presents his material in an easy to read, practical format--and the pictures are excellent. Anyone--professional and lay person alike--can benefit from this book. In fact, I recommend this book to my clients. I'm always encouraging them to try to help themselves during the time between our sessions. If you've got pain or help others deal with their pain, get this book. You won't be sorry.

Clair Davies et al. should be canonized, October 5, 2004
If you suffer from mysterious and FRUSTRATING chronic musculoskeletal pain and are at your wit's end (like I was), ORDER THIS BOOK NOW. This book SAVED ME by helping put an end to about 4 months of "unexplained" pain in my thighs, knees, buttocks and hips. I had spent hundreds of $$ getting x-rays, MRI's, bone scans, and seeing numerous physicians as well as a physical therapist, chiropractor, and a naturopath. None had a clear expanation of what was causing me so much pain for such a long time. I was prescribed massive doses of ibuprofen (which did nothing but ruin my stomach) as well as Valium, Flexeril, Elavil, and finally Prozac. I tried various supplements including potassium, magnesium and B vitamins, but they didn't seem to do anything. I was completely unable to exercise as it made the pain much worse..at times I was unable to walk a couple blocks. I finally got this book last week and realized that little "knots" in my muscles were the source of all this grief. No wonder nothing else (physical therapy, diet, medication) worked! With the book I figured out that I had at about ~10 trigger points in my buttocks/thighs, some which were EXTREMELY painful to massage. Since it was so painful i was a bit skeptical at first but I stuck with it. I began to massage with a tennis ball several times a day. Some trigger points responded immedately after a massage and others took several days, but after a while the aching pains in my legs have subsided! I couldn't believe that something so SIMPLE (something I could do myself) could end such a debilitating problem that numerous doctors & specialists couldn't figure out. Combined with acupuncture and craniosacral therapy & occasional professional deep-tissue massage I would say my pain is 99% gone. I am so glad I discovered this book...I never thought I would find the explanation (and the solution!) for all this pain!! I can now look forward to returning to a normal, pain-free life! Thanks so much to Clair Davies and others who contributed to making this book!!

P.S. I have just started reading through ALL the sections of this book (not just the ones for leg pain) since trigger point massage seems to help with all sorts of pain (i.e. carpal tunnel syndrome, back pain, etc). So from now on I will consult this book FIRST before seeking a doctor or some medication for any type of pain. My only regret is that I didn't buy this book sooner!!

Comprehensive information that promotes self-management..., October 8, 2001
This book is a godsend. Clair Davies' book starts by describing the author's personal journey as a person in pain who discovered the power of self-applied trigger point therapy. The book then goes on to detail the basics of trigger point science and methods of self-treatment. Each body region contains muscle-by-muscle descriptions of trigger point locations, causes, referred pain patterns, and specific self-treatment techniques with fingers, thumbs, tennis balls or other hand-held "tools".

Two populations will benefit. The first are professionals dealing with myofascial pain. Mr. Davies' book has neatly summarized many of the essentials contained in the bar-setting but often intimidating 2-volume "bibles" of trigger point therapy by Janet Travell and David Simons, which will make many more practitioners comfortable with the idea of searching for and treating trigger points with manual techniques.

More important than information for clinicians is the help and hope this book offers to suffering patients. The book's focus is on self-treatment, which is not only *possible*, but is in fact *extremely* effective, and often downright necessary in this day and age: healthcare costs are forever rising, insurance coverage for physical therapy grows progressively more restrictive, massage therapists are often costly and the majority of the time, not covered by insurance, and, money factors aside, pain does not always present itself when professional treatment is readily available. Even with the *best* professional treatment, myofascial conditions are highly recurrent and knowing how to deal with these recurrences empowers patients and thereby reduces fear and apprehension.

With information referenced from current and highly reputable sources, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook has not only my highest recommendation, but also the endorsement of many, many well-known names in the field of myofascial pain, including one of its pioneers, Dr. David Simons.

Fibromyalgia and Boby Pain, August 31, 2001
I rate this book right up there with Devin Starlanyl's books. I have had Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain most of my adult life and have been disabled the past 5 years. This book by Mr. Davies has just helped me end 2 months of an excruiating flare of muscle pain. I showed it to my Pain Management physician, who is ordering one for his office and will advise his other patients similarly effected to purchase one if possible. When all the doctors don't know what else to tell you about relieving your body/muscle pain, this book is the answer. It is easily understood by medical professionals and laypeople alike. It's deascription of the muscles and the mechanism involved in the creation of unexplained boby pain is outstanding. Anyone, by themself or with another person, will find the diagrams showing the location of trigger points in muscles and how to achieve relief easy to learn. Mr. Davies explanation of massage therapy for trigger point release has made this book one of the best and most valued tools for self-treatment of body pain.

Worked beautifully for me, April 5, 2006
I would like to share my exerience ,briefly, with this book. I had shoulder pain for over two months, that neither rest,heat,cooling,meds, or excercise diminished in the slightest. My doctor could find no cause for it, and recommended physical therapy. That didn't help. Out of frustration, I picked up a stack of books at the library. Fortunately, this was the first one I looked at. I was skeptical frankly, but being desparate devoted a couple of hours to reading the salient parts of the book. I found my trigger point ( tender area ) on the front shoulder ( anterior deltoid as I recall ).
I purchased a lacrosse ball as recommened in the book, and proceeded to massage the area using the technique specified. The end result was in two days, the pain thruout my shoulder had diminished by approx. 80%. After 1 week, the pain was gone, with only an occasional sensation. It's been about 2 weeks now since I started, and I still have a very tiny tender area, so I give it the ball treatment a couple of times a day.
It's very important to complete the treatment until the trigger point is TOTALY erased ( as stated in the book ). Also, some have mentioned that the book is highly technical. It is to a degree, but not to where it can't be discerned by the average person with a little perseverance. You don't have to read the entire book! Just the initial couple of chapters on diagnosis and technique, then straight to the chapter that deals with your symptom area. Like I said, I spent a couple of hours reading, and went right at the treatment.
I had to write this, as I could not find the authors email anywhere, and I'm eternally grateful to him for giving the world this treatment technique that a layman can self adminster. If your a pain sufferer you owe it to yourself to at least try this system.

Eliminate pain from your life for less than $20, June 20, 2005
A lacrosse ball and this book have changed my life, and together, they cost less than $20. I have suffered from chronic pain since I was 13. At its worst, my pain was so bad that I was drinking myself to sleep at night and I thought I was going to need crutches to get around. The worst part was, I didn't know what was wrong with me, and the medical explanations I'd been given didn't seem right.

In January of this year I finally found the solution to my pain when I read this book. It knew in such detail what was wrong with me that it even explained every misdiagnosis I have ever been given. No doctor I saw ever mentioned this book, and most people haven't heard of it, but as you can see from all these rave reviews, the book is genius.

Whether you suffer from chronic pain, the occasional sports injury, or pretty much any other kind of pain, this book can help you. Some common issues it can help with are carpal tunnel syndrome, back pain, migraines, and bad knees. It can also help you with less common, even extremely uncommon issues. You may find out that whatever problem you think you have is not serious at all and can be solved with this massage technique. Regularly treating your trigger points can allow you to become more active, increase strength, sleep more soundly, and do physical activities you thought you couldn't.

I learned that, surprisingly, activities like stretching, yoga, and physical therapy can actually make your pain worse. I have had multiple bad experiences with yoga and physical therapy. I thought I was crazy for thinking that these exercises that were supposed to help were making me worse, and I scolded myself for being lazy when I quit doing them. What I learned from this book is that by going against medical advice and refusing to do something that was hurting me, I was actually doing everything right.

Listen to your body! Doctors, friends, family members, etc. do not necessarily know what is best. No one lives in your body but you. If other people's explanations or advice don't seem right to you, they probably aren't. If you want a real solution to pain, buy this book. I never thought I'd be able to feel as amazing as I feel today.

Arthritis and other pains, March 29, 2002
I was in so much pain that I couldn't sleep at night. I was diagnosed with arthritis (hip, back, etc), but I was not satisfied that this explained my pain. Then I found Davies' book and started to work on trigger points with the rubber ball he recommends. It didn't solve all my problems, but it reduced my pain to the point where I could sleep without pills (and demonstrated that my pain was at least partly muscular)--and all for the cost of a ... little ball! And now (several other therapies later), I still keep the book and the rubber ball by my bed, and still follow its directions to massage key areas on a daily basis.

This book is terrific--the best "self-help" book I've seen. It is clearly written, well organized, mostly well illustrated, and contains a wealth of really useful detail. It is definitely not one of those "glossy" books--all photos and no useful information. The author really does take the approach of someone who was himself helped by this therapy and who wants to make it as clear and accessible to his readers as possible. Very highly recommended.

Effective Self-Help for Pain, May 3, 2003
This book provides lots of good information on healing pain. It's written in an accessible, easy-to-read style for people who don't know anything about muscles, yet the information is not simplistic, and is useful even for professionals who want to learn about trigger points. This book is great for people who have chronic pain and are motivated to help themselves. Trigger point massage really does a lot more good than anything doctors have to offer -- most doctors are not trained to effectively help people with muscular pain. And it's cheaper and more effective to do it yourself than pay to see a massage therapist, because you'd need to go every day for most seriously chronic problems. I do have a few complaints: There are lots of illustrations, but they don't always show all the areas of referred pain. There are handy lists arranged by body part, but it would be even more helpful to have a more detailed reference guide where you could look up specific symptoms. I also think Davies is a little too enthusiastic, claiming trigger points are the cause of most pain. He is also unfairly disparaging of massage therapists. Any properly trained massage therapist knows it's not always the spot where it hurts that's causing the problem, and if you know how all the muscles work together to act on a joint, and a little about nerve pathways, you're going to address most of the areas that are likely to have trigger points. Still, he has a valid point in that consumers need to ask whether a massage therapist specializes in relaxation massage or knows how to treat specific pain and injuries. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Portraits of the Mind follows the fascinating history of our exploration of the brain through images, from medieval sketches and 19th-century drawings by the founder of modern neuroscience to images produced using state-of-the-art techniques, allowing us to see the fantastic networks in the brain as never before. These black-and-white and vibrantly colored images, many resembling abstract art, are employed daily by scientists around the world, but most have never before been seen by the general public. Each chapter addresses a different set of techniques for studying the brain as revealed through the images, and each is introduced by a leading scientist in that field of study. Author Carl Schoonover’s captions provide detailed explanations of each image as well as the major insights gained by scientists over the course of the past 20 years. Accessible to a wide audience, this book reveals the elegant methods applied to study the mind, giving readers a peek at its innermost workings, helping us to understand them, and offering clues about what may lie ahead. 

Praise for Portraits of the Mind: 

"The collection of images in the new book Portraits of the Mind is truly impressive . . . The mix of history, science and art is terrific." 
-Wired.com

Reviews

A mind-blowing wish come true, October 28, 2010
Through graduate school I encountered countless scientific images of the brain that were fascinating due to the creative techniques used to capture them as well as their power for unraveling sientific mysteries; but above all these images were simply beautiful in their own right and kept me wanting more.

In Portraits of the Mind, Carl Shoonover goes far beyond presenting an extensive compilation of beautiful images of the brain's physiology. He uses them in conjunction with brilliant and down-to-earth essays from top neuroscienctist to tell the story of the brain and of the people who've studied it throughout the centuries.

This book is a work of art to be treasured by anyone who shares appreciation for visual imaging, science and the brain.

Thanks Carl!

Where's Waldo?, December 2, 2010
"Science is beauty, beauty science. That is all we know or need to know." - attributed to John Keats, with bowdlerizations.

I couldn't do better for this stunning book that quote the opening paragraphs of a New York Times story by Abigail Zuger announcing it. But I've been sternly warned that such a helpful quotation from Ms Zuger's article would violate copyright laws; therefore I'm deleting my original posting. You'll need to search the Times for yourself to learn more about the book.

The most fascinating "portraits" of the title are primarily of cell networks in the brain, illuminated by various lazar and radiation technologies. The dramatic color coding of neurons in some photos results from genetic engineering that transfers 'luminescence' from the cells of squid and other sea creatures to mammalian cells. Don't ask me how any of it is done. One of the main research projects behind these pictures is called "brainbow" and you can learn about it by googling to your heart's content. I've seen a good deal of this work in the laboratory context, having had the privilege of being guided through the Harvard Institute for the Study of the Brain by its director, Dr. Joshua Sanes. I can hardly tell you how breathtaking it is, both visually and philosophically. But I'm ashamed to say that I haven't found Waldo in a single picture, or anything that would pass for a Soul, either.
... Read more

Editorial Review

Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia,® 2011 Classic Shirt-Pocket Edition continues its tradition as the leading portable drug reference packed with vital drug information to help clinicians make better decisions at the point-of-care. Each edition is meticulously peer-reviewed by experts and is now available in multiple formats. It details typical drug dosing (both FDA approved and off-label uses), available trade and generic formulations, metabolism, safety in pregnancy and lactation, relative drug pricing information, Canadian trade names, and an herbal & alternative therapies section. Multiple tables supplement the drug content, including opioid equivalency, emergency drug infusions, cardiac dysrhythmia protocols, pediatric drug dosing, and much more! Save time and improve patient care with the 2011 Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia®.New for the 2011 Edition: Black Box Warning Indications; Updated Drug Content; New Figures & Tables ... Read more

Reviews

My Favorite Drug Reference Book, December 14, 2010
I recommend the Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia to anyone who works in the medical transcription field. Medical transcription requires one to have up-to-date drug references at hand, and it's important to be able to find needed information quickly. This is my favorite resource for this.

Many times, the one piece of information a medical transcriptionist needs is whether a medication name is a brand or generic, in order to format it correctly. The Pocket Pharmacopoeia's index makes it super-fast and easy to confirm this and to double check spelling. Beyond that, it's a cinch to find information on available formulations, strengths, and common dosages.

A unique strong point of this publication is that the medications are arranged by diagnostic area, which can be very helpful. If one knows that, say, the mystery drug is a blood pressure medication, it's easy to skim that section to find the right name.

Finally, this book is very reasonably priced for a reference of this type, and I LOVE its "pocket footprint." It takes up very little desktop real estate to keep it right at hand for quick reference.

I recommend the Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia to all of my medical transcription staff and students. Try it once, and I predict it will be an annual purchase for you thereafter. To borrow a quotation from an old copy of the book: "It's not what you know, it's how fast you can find the information." ... Read more

Editorial Review

EXPERIENCE TABER S 21!

To thrive in the ever-changing world of health care, you need a respected, trusted, and cutting-edge, cyclopedic resource. In hand, online, or on a mobile device, turn to Taber s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, 21st Edition...anytime, anywhere!

Taber s 21 is today s most comprehensive health science dictionary. Under the editorial direction of Donald Venes, MD, MSJ, a team of expert consulting editors and consultants representing every branch of health care, work with the Taber s in-house editorial staff to ensure that the content reflects the state of the art.

* Cyclopedic entries offer more than just definitions.
* More than 60,000 reader-friendly definitions, including 3,000 brand-new terms and 7,000 revised terms.
* Over 1,000 full-color illustrations in the book and DVD combined.
* More than 600 Patient Care Statements
* Caution Statements with new easy-to-find icon
* Dozens of Allied Health and Nursing Appendices
* The MAC & PC compatible FREE Taber sPlus DVD
* So much more!

BONUS! THE TABER SPLUS DVD

Every print copy of Taber s 21 features the Taber sPlus DVD. This multimedia toolkit offers a wealth of interactive activities, clinical tools, and resources.
Taber s World Tour An exploration of the dictionary s many features.
Explore through Sight & Sound 1,000 images and hundreds of terms with their definitions and pronunciations.
Taber s Audio Clear and precise pronunciations for 30,000 terms.
Brain Teasers Word-building activities and games.
Bonus Appendices Twelve appendices including valuable clinical resources.
Taber s Online powered by Unbound Medicine® Free one-year subscription to the website.
Taber s Mobile powered by Skyscape® Free one-year subscription for your mobile device.
DavisPlus Online Resources for students and instructors like test banks, animations, videos, and more. ... Read more

Reviews

Best Medical Dictionary., October 3, 2000
I was 'raised' on Stedman's, the usual medical dictionary at my Med School. When I recently bought a Taber's as a gift for a future colleague, I was surprised at the easier 'navigation' possible with Taber's (the tabs are excellent) and I was impressed with the quality & quantity of the illustrations. I believe this is the best choice for both health care providers and consumers.

Indispensable for Professionals, Students, & Laypeople, May 4, 2004
This dictionary has enough information to be useful for even the most learned medical professional and is still simple enough to use to be accessible to any mildly educated member of society. The dictionary is much more than simply a dictionary. Consisting of the vocabulary section and then some appendices, this 2270-page godsend is chockfull of definitions, examples, full-color diagrams, charts, diagnoses, and more. The preface to the dictionary actually lists all of the features of this cyclopedic dictionary, so I will regurgitate it here:
1. Vocabulary
2. Easy-to-Use Entry Format
3. Alphabetization
4. Eponyms (including biographies of those after whom things were named)
5. Definitions
6. Pronunciations
7. Singular/Plural Forms
8. Etymologies
9. Abbreviations
10. Encyclopedic Entries
11. Illustrations
12. Tables
13. Adjective Forms of Words
14. Cautionary Statements
15. Synonyms (Very helpful!)
16. Cross-References
17. Appendices (Basically all the stuff that doesn't fit well within the dictionary, like medical terminology prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms as well as lots of various classification schemes)
18. Nursing Diagnoses Appendix

The book comes with a trial subscription to Taber's Online. This is my only complaint. Taber's Online does not appear to have received the thorough thought that the printed version did. I found that it was generally unhelpful, but you don't have to pay any extra for it, so I'm not complaining, just commenting. Overall, I would strongly recommend buying the Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary.

Great book for non-medical persons too!, August 24, 2001
Having taken a medical terminology class at the hospital where I work, I quizzed the instructor on a suitable medical dictionary in his opinion that I could use for my daily work needs. He suggested a few including this one. Next day in work, I was about to ask a few of the many people in my department what their preferences were but decided to take a stroll around the cubicles instead. Sure enough, nearly every cubicle I passed, held a copy of this dictionary. After purchasing a copy, I wasn't surprised to see why. The book is very easy to follow and understand so, if you find yourself in need of this subject, I'd definitely recommend Taber's.

Incredible collection, July 8, 2005
Although Stedman's dictionary seems to be the preference for most medical schools, Taber's actually contains a lot more words than Stedman's. To be fair, there isn't much competition when it comes to medical dictionaries, it's either Stedman's or Taber's. Stedman's update is usually 4 to 5 years, but you'll only notice the lack of new words if you're in the research field. Taber's tends to release a new edition every year or two, plus you get more words at a lower price. In terms of the definitions in Taber's, it's written to be just a bit more considerate for the layman. Whereas in Stedman's, you would probably need to be at least a medical student or higher to make the most use of it. Best solution is to get both, at least one of the two definitions will make better sense to you.

A must have for any Nursing student, June 19, 2004
I can't tell you how invaluable this book is to me. It is safe to say I would be lost without it. I am in a bridge nursing program (RN-Masters) and have never worked in the medical feild before. Upper division textbooks are usually unhelpful because they contain no glossary at the back of the book. If your books are the same way this book is a necessity!

Definitions are in plain english rather than crazy medical jargon so you rarely have to filp pages to define words in the definition of the original word in question. Even better are the multitude of pictures and diagrams that really solidify your understanding of select terms.

There are some additional niceties specifially for nurses or nursing students. The appendix is filled with useful nursing guides such as:
1. Nutrition and dietary refrence values
2. Herbal medicines and their uses
3. Normal refrence laboratory values
4. Prefixes and suffixes
5. Latin and Greek nomenclature
6. Medical abbreviations
7. Units of measurement
8. Mini English-Spanish-French dictionary inclusive of specific medical phrases that may be used on the job
9. Classification of poisons and poisoning, including pathology, symptoms, and medical treatment
10. Addresses for health care resources and organizations, and nursing organizations
11. NIC and NOC lists
12. Nursing diagnosis
13. Conceptual models and theories of nursing

Those additional resources alone are worth the price of this book. You may be on a tight budget, but this is one book you cannot afford to be without.

The best medical dictionary for practical use, March 1, 1999
I continue to use this book, after 5 years in private practice. It is fast, concise and still amazes me at its depth.

I've just recommended it to my brother who is begining his EMT training.

A Definitive Medical Dictionary, April 3, 2002
The Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary is probably the best medical dictionary that you can buy today. It is very definitive in it's defintions and the charts, illustrations, and pictures make this medical dictionary vey fun. Whether you are already a doctor or are a medical student this dictionary is an absolute must. When I started to show an interest in medicine this was my first medical book. Whenever you are watching or reading something that pertains to medicine and something comes up that you are not sure about, this dictionary will solve your problems. I do have one problem with this dictionary, however. The pages are very thin and rip easily. This is not a biggy but is still something that I'm not too crazy about.

This medical dictionary is the best of all other medical dictionaries that are out there today. I recommend this to a medical student, a doctor, or anybody that holds and interest in medicine. This dictionary is an absolute must. Be sure to check this dictionary out, it has valuable information.

Happy Reading!!!

DISCOVER ITS PORTABILITY AND POWER, August 20, 2002
When the theme is Medical Dictionary, Dorland's and Stedman's often come to mind. No doubt, both are very good. But the truth is that apart from their CD-ROM versions, one may require the services of a powerlifter in order to lug either of the two around. This is where 'Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary' proves to be a winner. It delivers a near Stedman's (or Dorland's) output for half the weight. It is concise, accurate, and well-illustrated. Unless you are a medical transcriptionist, there is little (or no) need for a giant or pocket-sized dictionary if you already own Taber's.

Good but lacking some words., April 4, 2003
I bought this dictionary because it was one of recommended texts for my medical transcription course.
PROS:
1. The version I have is thumb-indexed so it's very convenient.
2. It has a CD-ROM so you can install the dictionary into your computer, copy, cut and paste definitions, or just read them while you are typing your transcript.
3. After the word definition, it gives you the origins of the word. THis is very helpful since a foundation in medical terminology is essential for a medical transcriptionist.
4. The CD allows you to search medical phrases and will give you all the entries where the phrases may be found. Example: If you type in "column of Bertin", it will give you entries where "column" and "Bertin" appear. By clicking on the entries, you will find that this is not listed under C but under B: "Bertin, column of".
CONS:
1. The CD-ROM should be in your drive while you are using it on your PC desktop.
2. Dictionary sometimes doesn't pop up when you want it to while you are typing a document, even when the CD is inside the drive. Sometimes it asks you to go online. I haven't mastered exactly why it does this because at other times, it will immediately come up.
3. Biggest con: some words aren't there at all. Etoposide is an example. The seventh cranial nerve (facial) isn't listed under "facial nerve" or "seventh cranial nerve". This is funny because all the other cranial nerves are listed under 2 entries each: e.g., "first cranial nerve" lists the olfactory nerve and its definition and description; under "olfactory nerve" you will see it referred to as a cranial nerve. Cranial nerves I-XII are listed as such except for the seventh. Normocephalic is another term that doesn't appear, but is commonly heard on trancription. These are the words I can remember not being there because they are the ones that I looked up most recently to make sure I had the correct spelling (in the case of normocephalic, most new transcriptionists would transcribe it as normal cephalic; if the doctor eats his words while dictating, you wouldn't even know the difference). There have been others that I had to look up in other medical dictionaries or word books.
VERDICT: If you are a medical student or medical transcriptionist, you need other resources besides this book.

Best medical reference for court reporters, December 31, 1998
I find Taber's to be the most comprehensive and accurate medical reference and recommend it to the students in my court reporting course. We also use it in our court reporting office. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Since the DSM-IV® was published in 1994, we’ve seen many advances in our knowledge of psychiatric illness. This Text Revision incorporates information culled from a comprehensive literature review of research about mental disorders published since DSM-IV® was completed in 1994. Updated information is included about the associated features, culture, age, and gender features, prevalence, course, and familial pattern of mental disorders.

The DSM-IV® brings this essential diagnostic tool up-to-date, to promote effective diagnosis, treatment, and quality of care. Now you can get all the essential diagnostic information you rely on from the DSM-IV® along with important updates not found in the 1994 edition.

Stay current with important updates to the DSM-IV®:

• Benefit from new research into Schizophrenia, Asperger’s Disorder, and other conditions

• Utilize additional information about the epidemiology and other facets of DSM conditions

• Update ICD-9-CM codes implemented since 1994 (including Conduct Disorder, Dementia, Somatoform Disorders)

DSM-IV-TR, the handheld version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision, is now available for both Palm OS and PocketPC handhelds. This Text Revision incorporates information culled from a comprehensive literature review of research about mental disorders and includes associated features, culture, age, and gender features, prevalence, course, and familial pattern of mental disorders. And with Skyscape's patented smARTlink™ technology, DSM-IV-TR can easily cross-index with other clinical and drug prescription products from Skyscape to provide a powerful and integrated source of clinical information that you can carry with you wherever you go! ... Read more

Reviews

Not much new..., June 2, 2003
Like other reviewers, I agree that if you own DSM-IV (burgundy cover), there is absolutely no reason for you to purchase the DSM-IV-TR (silver cover). Might as well wait for DSM-V (won't that be a treat). If you are not a mental health professional or graduate student, I can't imagine why you would want to own this book. It is essentially a compilation of symptom and behavior checklists that help clinicians make reliable diagnoses of mental disorders.

I would recommend strongly (for both professionals, students, and the lay public), DSM-IV Made Easy by James Morrison. Morrison's book makes the DSM come alive. He illustrates technical points well, and provides interesting case examples that make you think of people when you read the diagnosis, not just symptoms.

Informative, but don't buy it if you have the original DSM-4, December 23, 2001
The text-revised version is virtually identical to the 1994 version of the DSM-IV and not worth buying if you have the 1994 version. Along with the DSM-IV, the DSM-IV Text Revised version is, however, an informative book that provides good introductory information, especially in the "Diagnostic Features" section, about a wide variety of mental disorders. A problem of the manual, in my opinion, is its use of a categorical classification system while ignoring the dimensional nature of psychological phenomena.

Lee J. Markowitz, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)

specific value only, February 27, 2003
The diagnostic sections remain largely unchanged. Only significant changes were to the text portion, hence the TR designation-- text revised. This is important if you are a student or in a research position. They produced this version in response to the fact that many graduate programs are using the DSM as a text book in their Pathology courses. In this regard, the new version is worthwhile and clearly justified. It also buys them a little more time in development of the DSM V. For clinical purposes, don't bother, it's not worth the money. If you are getting your first copy, or are looking for class, then you want this edition.

IF YOU ARE BUYING THIS BOOK, READ THIS!!!!!, September 23, 2008
Let me start by saying if you find this useful, please click on the "Yes" next to the question "Did you find this review uesful". The reason i ask is because i think this is important information and with enough yes's, it can move to the top of the reviews.

My review is to do with the quality of the book. You will see some people complain about the quality of this book. The reason is because there are 2 editions out there in English, the US release and the India release. The main way you can tell is from the cover as the Indian version has "Jaypee" as the publisher. Now, the Jaypee version is legal to buy and sell in the USA, but is of lesser quality (print and paper) than the US version and thats fine as long as you know thats what you are buying. Some people think they are buying a US release and pay US prices, but get a cheaper version.

As a result, i have created a new listing for the International edition, which can be found using B001GLFCUK in the search box. If it does not work, it is in the process of being accepted by Amazon.

If you thought you were getting a US verion and your copy says "Jaypee", contact the seller who has to accept it back.

Great for Psychologists, disappointing for Psychiatrists, December 19, 2002
Of course, this is the bible of mental disorder diagnoses, at least in the U.S. The diagnoses are pretty inclusive, but there are several problems with this book as it pertains to the practice of Psychiatry. First, the book offers about 900 pages on symptom diagnosis, and about half a paragraph on the types of psychiatric medications that are effective for the particular diagnosis. 95% of diagnoses have absolutely no recommendations for treatment.

This leads to the second problem: differentiation of primary vs. secondary symptoms. The primary symptoms are the cornerstone of diagnosis. The secondary symptoms take way too much space in this book, and are generally not helpful in making a diagnosis, because the vast majority of secondary symptoms overlap in most mental illnesses. The important use for secondary symptoms is for the type of therapy that should be used (psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy). For example, if two patients are depressed, the diagnosis is made from primary symptoms (tiredness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, psychomotor retardation). However, if patient "A" has no significant secondary symptoms like anxiety or insomnia, they can take a high dose of SSRI or Effexor. But if patient "B" has the secondary symptoms of prominent anxiety and insomnia, Remeron or Serzone may be more helpful, and perhaps a benzodiazepine can be added.

The DSM IV does nothing to further the practicality of psychiatry. And that's a shame, because only a few hundred extra pages of pharmacotherapy recommendations would make the book so much more helpful to psychiatrists, who currently waste a lot of time experienting with every drug for the treatment-resistant patients. Some drugs work better for some people based on secondary symptoms, which cannot be ignored in the choice of drug treatment. A good book that does match secondary symptoms to drug treatment is The Failures of American Medicine.

One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap For the Insurance Industry, September 19, 2005
The DSM is very clearly written and can be understood by anyone no matter what his or her educational level. It also contains an exceptional psychiatric glossary and an exceptional psychoanalytically oriented section describing the "defense mechanisms." The public is ambivalent about psychiatry but has embraced the DSM because it provides readers with the illusion that if you read this book you can diagnosis yourself and your acquaintances. What most mental health professional know is that this book is a political document as well as a scientific one. It advances the cause of the psychobioligists (over the environmentalists) and the alliance of drug companies, insurance companies and psychopharmacologists. What the sub-committees who wrote each section of the DSM have done is to organize the vast array of life problems that we have long thought of as "neurotic" (and stemming from early family experience) and placed them side by side with clearly biological diseases like schizophrenia and manic-depression. Why? The aim is to create the impression that all of the ordinary habitual problems in love and work that pretty much everyone agrees come from the way you were brought up in your family are in fact biological - and probably inherited - illnesses. Chronic unhappiness, for example, is coded with the "mood disorders" like classic manic depressive illness. Another facet of the DSM that is pernicisous is that each problem the patient has must be coded separately. There is no way to describe the patient in holistic terms. The patient as described by the DSM (and treated by the psychiatrist guided by this document) ends up looking something like a cubist painting by Picasso. What is discouraged is trying to understand the person's various problems as interrelated parts of a comprehensible whole that has developed over a lifetime from a continual ongoing interaction between the person's life experience and their biology. Among the most pernicious effects of the DSM has been its influence on psychiatric education. Psychiatric trainees are encouraged to use the DSM as their first approach to the patient. It is very sad to see these fledglings struggle to make diagnosis rather than to understand their patient. Do they ask whether the patient has a brother or a sister or was born rich or poor. No! Conference after conference is devoted to figuring out which DSM category the patient fits into. No one dares tells the trainee the little secret of the DSM, which is that about half of patients don't fit into any category at all. Some of us, of course, do have OCD or ADD or are narcissistic or suffer from moderate autism (Asperger's Syndrome) but most of us are not so neatly described. Most people have to be squeezed into categories that we don't fit into. The overall chairman of the committee that wrote the DSM IV (Dr. Allen Frances) has, to his credit, acknowledged (in a New Yorker magazine interview) that the DSM IV categories are neither valid nor reliable and don't describe (in his words) "reality." All of this said, the DSM is a crystalline clearly written document that well summarizes contemporary descriptive psychiatry.

DSM IV TR PAPERBACK, August 11, 2000
The study of mental disorders is an ever evolving process. It is good to see a revision of the old DSM IV which has been in use for the past five years. The book is printed in a easy to read print size and the layout has been updated. There will be other revisions so this is the first of many, until DSM V.

An extraordinary window into the mechanisms of social ordering, May 17, 2009
We live in increasingly complex societies where knowledge is endlessly expanding. Unless it is ordered, of course, information itself does us no good. The medical profession was among the first to recognize the need for ordered, cataloged information.

I became involved with DSM by accident: one of my projects required me to include a few pages copied from the DSM, well within the limits of Fair Use. Normally I would have hopped over to the library, copied the pages and been on my way. One of the local libraries, however, had a circulating copy so I spent more time with the volume than I would have otherwise.

Consider that there is no small amount of controversy surrounding the DSM (which, by the wsy, stands for "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders"). Many point wagging fingers at it for becoming involved with political issues, such as its well publicized dropping some years back of homosexuality as a "mental disorder". Others claim it is a make-word project for psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers and others who are presented with an ever expanding array of mental disorders which are, in turn, covered by insurance and become cash flow producers for practitioners.

For the practitioner, however, it is easy to see that it provides a framework within which to compare their observations of a specific client against the collective knowledge of the American Psychiatric Association and its DSM publication committee.

Leafing through it is a solid reminder of how fortunate many of us are: we don't have any of the major disorders described here. On the other hand, it is interesting to see how inventive the mental health professionals have been in turning so many seemingly commonplace conditions into "mental disorders" for which they can be paid to treat. (Like many, I have a somewhat jaundiced view of psychotherapy. I have know two women who spent more than 25 years each in therapy - before deciding to become therapists.)

The introductory description of how the DSM came to be, how it is compiled and how it should be applied is fascinating in itself. The 1840 U.S. Census recorded only one variety of mental illness: "idiocy/insanity". By 1870, seven categories were listed. There are now, counting sub-divisions, hundreds of categories.

It is indeed fascinating to read the descriptions of the disorders and the diagnostic criteria. It is possible - with a little stretching - to see that the future of such medicine may rest in automated diagnostics. The computer program Eliza and other experiments gave a foretaste of that.

All in all, from a layman's perspective, a fascinating look at the human penchant for collecting, organizing, preserving and disseminating knowledge in action.

Jerry

Blue Shirt, Partially-Untucked, Red Tie, Ushanka Bedecked Disorder, July 12, 2006
Hey, it is what it is. I've heard people discuss DSM-IV-TR as if it were the bible of psychiatry, the ultimate textbook of psychiatric pathology. On the other side are the people who would throw it out completely in fear that any label applied to anyone dehumanizes them, reduces them to a category, dooms them to a lifetime of struggling with their new pathological identity.

DSM is for research purposes. It is a collection of constellations of symptoms, compiled by clinicians, organized into categories by vote of committee, and it does make convenient shorthand for describing patients. If you want to do a study looking at how people respond to a certain medication versus placebo, you need some kind of criteria for deciding which people are appropriate to include in the study, some kind of rigorous way to establish the parameters so that each subject isn't a soft call, and that is what DSM is appropriate for. It's big on reliability, low on validity. Its inter-rater reliability is also what makes it a convenient shorthand for describing patients to other clinicians (or, more often and more urgently, to insurance utilization reviewers). I'm not going to review hours of process notes in a presentation, but if I say someone suffers from recurrent severe major depression with psychosis, you quickly know some relevant things about what the problems are. Even with the big garbage bin categories of schizoaffective disorder or cognitive brain disorder not otherwise specified, you can at least characterize someone within the right ballpark. But that's as far as it is useful for and that's as far as it should be used. Diagnosis is a tricky part of individual patient care and often the hunt for diagnostic precision is a distracter. It plays into to reification myths, the idea that attaching a name to something makes it a distinct, concrete entity. All of these symptoms exist on spectrums, most psychiatric symptoms in their mild to moderate forms can be a normal part of life, and the search for concrete categories can lead us down the wrong road when it drives the treatment rather than being one piece in the formulation of an individual patient. By the way, if there is any doubt that DSM categories are nothing more than descriptions of observations, let the diagnosis "intermittent explosive disorder" illustrate the case, the mostly inanely concrete and pointless reification of anger and/or impulsiveness as a distinct syndrome. It's not just impractical, it's downright embarrassing. An article appeared in the local paper about a proposed link between road rage and intermittent explosive disorder, and two separate patients brought it into session, mockingly questioning me on the authenticity of this diagnosis.

It is what it is. Worth studying and being very familiar with since it serves as an oft referenced interface between research, Big Pharm, the clinical world, and the business world. Worth studying as, just as the acronym suggests, a statistical manual of carved out syndromes negotiated by mostly dull men sitting through dull meetings. I've never been involved, but I picture constipated men, with coffee and stale non-dairy creamer breath intermingled with a musty smell from their clothes. And these men are passionately arguing and negotiating, with their prides on the line. But that's not really the point, sorry. The point is, if DSM categories are anything other than a minor factor in guiding how you care for your patients, that is your sloppiness. Let's not blame an inert stack of papers for not living up to the sacredness that's been fallaciously imposed on it.

Not the simple, useful nosology you're looking for., August 29, 2001
I quote Karl Menninger, on the publication of the DSM-II in 1968:
"This year [1968] the APA took a great step backward when it abandoned the principles used in the simple useful nosology [DSM-I]. In the interest of uniformity, in the interest of having some kind of international code of designation for different kinds of human troubles, in the interest of statistics and computers, the American medical scientists were asked to repudiate some of the advances they had made in conceptualization and in the designation of mental illness."
Since then, it's gotten worse, not better, with thousands of symptom checklists and numbered diagnoses, conveniently correlated to the ICD-9 standard diagnosis codes for easier billing.
But people, medical students and physicians included, will insist on treating DSM-IV as a textbook in psychiatry. It's nothing of the sort - it never touches on the essential topics of etiology, prognosis, and treatment. People memorize the checklists and think they understand psychiatry, when in fact they have entirely failed to grasp the noble and great endeavor: riddling out the first causes and mechanisms of our humanity, and how those mechanisms go awry.
Well, then, you say, what about diagnosis? Isn't this a diagnostic manual?
In my opinion, for that purpose DSM-IV is worse than useless to a lay person. Consider the previous reviewer who thought the book made a good party game, diagnosing his healthy friends with all sorts of 'disorders'. It wouldn't take much experience in a psychiatric emergency room to realize that psychiatric illness is no party game - but it would take some. Without the context provided by direct, caring relationships with the mentally ill, the jargon and symptoms discussed in this book are meaningless. This book will not teach you to be a psychiatric diagnostician! Only experience can do that. It's intended as a quick reference guide for people with that experience, and a reference concerned with very practical matters not relevant to the patient-physician relationship (such as the standardized conduct and reporting of clinical trials, or how to justify billled services).
I'd disagree strongly with the prior reviewer who felt psychiatric patients should read their DSM-IV. If you're a psychiatric patient "on the same page" as your health care practictioner, get off the page and get on top of your life! You have more pressing concerns than making yourself into an expert psychiatric diagnostician and quibbling over the learned APA's compilation of symptom checklists - you need to heal.
In short, I can't imagine recommending this tome to anyone for any purpose - people who need it don't need me to tell them so.
If you're interested, however, in psychiatry, I urge you to read the classics - Freud for the grounding of psychodynamics, Skinner on behaviorism, Menninger's superb "Man Against Himself" on suicide and depression, Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom" and "Man For Himself" for academic psychophilosophy, Kraepelin on dementia praecox (what we now call 'schizophrenia' - I prefer his original term), Wundt on introspective self-analysis, Kraft-Ebbing's "Psychopathia Sexualis" for a laugh and for a serious understanding of the social construction of sexual "disorder" - if you're really interested in these topics, you'll find these authors far more stimulating, I guarantee! ... Read more

Editorial Review

"One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year....Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting."—Entertainment Weekly

Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.

In this fascinating, ennobling account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries—from the anatomy labs and human-sourced pharmacies of medieval and nineteenth-century Europe to a human decay research facility in Tennessee, to a plastic surgery practice lab, to a Scandinavian funeral directors' conference on human composting. In her droll, inimitable voice, Roach tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them. ... Read more

Reviews

Death is not the end, May 20, 2003
This is a book about dead bodies. As Mary Roach demonstrates in her new book, some bodies go on to do remarkable things, such as helping FAA investigators understand why a plane crashed or helping auto-makers design safety features that save thousands of lives. Others are asked to do nothing more than rot away quietly at a research lab where forensic scientists study decomposition in order to improve crime scene investigation techniques. Some are put to slightly more questionable uses, such as the severed heads used by plastic surgeons to practice their facelift technique (surely not what people had in mind when they donated their bodies to science). Others have had even more bizarre adventures. Cadavers have been nailed to a cross in order to prove the authenticity of the shroud of Turin. Severed heads have been poked, prodded, and given transfusions in an attempt to revive them long after they and their bodies have parted ways.

The anonymous cadavers that are the subjects of STIFF could hardly have asked for a livelier or more sympathetic chronicler than Mary Roach, who has managed to write a book that balances sensitivity and respect with a wonderfully sharp wit. In fact, STIFF is unexpectedly and quite blessedly hilarious, although the humor never comes at the expense at the dead bodies that populate its pages. Instead, Roach uses humor as a kind of psychic safety valve, a vital and much-appreciated tension release from what is, at times, some very intense subject matter.

The real highlights of this book are the sections that delve into some of the more disreputable uses of cadavers. There is a droll and utterly hilarious history of body snatching and a short overview of medicinal cannibalism (human mummy confection, anyone?). There�s a fascinating catalog of the methods historically used to make sure that a dead body was in fact dead. This chapter culminates in what is surely the most spectacularly strange section of the book, in which Roach relates the story of Dr. Robert White, a neurosurgeon who in the mid-1960s performed a series of surgeries constituting what could be considered the first head transplant (or full body transplant, depending on your point of view). A wonderfully engrossing book on a subject most of us are reluctant to talk about.

Good Book with Some New Perspectives on Death, April 27, 2003
First, Mary Roach has a terrific sense of humor. She takes a challenging subject and finds ways to make you laugh just when you need it. Her humor is irreverent, but never disrespectful. She can laugh at some of the absurdity, yet still appreciate the pain dying can bring.

This is well written, well researched, and thorough. My one, very minor complaint is with the organization of the book. I feel as though it starts much more strongly than it finishes. So, for example, she might have considered organizing the chapters differently.

I don't think you need a particularly strong stomach to read this book. Only one item actually turned my stomach. But when it did, it *really* did.

The book succeeded in making me think about my own death. It also made me think about my mother's death and made it easier to accept certain events. ...

I hope this book will make you laugh and then think too.

And you thought death was depressing---, July 24, 2003
Mary Roach did her homework, and it shows. She has written and information packed, insightful, educational, respectful, and, yes, funny book on what happens to these bodies of ours when we get tired of hanging out in them. I have a newfound respect for all who have donated their bodies in the name of science. Not that I give it a lot of thought, but I figured cremation would be the most logical choice. After reading this book, heck, they can do whatever they want with me. I've always felt an obligation to help others, and if I can continue to do so after I have left this world, then HOORAY.
Meanwhile, expect some odd looks when you are sitting there reading a book obviously about the dearly departed, and you started sputtering, and can't help but laugh out loud! Quirky humour, but that's my favorite kind. Thank you, Mary Roach.
I recommend this book to anyone in healthcare, or the clergy, or anyone even dealing with people who experience loss. It gives you a new perspective.
On the other hand, I will have a hard time ever eating gelatin again...

Stiff, August 11, 2003
A few nights ago I made a weekend resolution that I'd tackle the much-neglected stack of fiction that teeters on my bedside table. However, while reverentially picking up 'The Body Artist' by Don Delillo, I was distracted by a misplaced reader's copy of Mary Roach's 'Stiff'. Evidently, despite my best intentions, a modest volume of non-fiction had managed to steal it's way into my fiction pile. As morbid curiosity has always been a personal failing, I cheerfully chucked aside 'The Body Artist' and eagerly cracked open Roach's book. For the first time in over two years, I read an entire volume in one sitting.

Roach opens her book with the comparison of death to a pleasure cruise: The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you....

Stiff is, without a doubt, a bizarre yet remarkably engaging read: not surprising since Roach is such a terrific writer. The author possesses the ingenious ability of being able to make digestible the most repulsive of subjects. Curious, yet not callus, Roach manages to ask-and yes, answer-questions often best left unspoken (keeping in mind public decorum). Furthermore, Roach is hilarious. Quite honestly I was surprised at how many times the author prompted (albeit sometimes guilty) laughter. A neat trick that, keeping in mind the grisly subject matter.

Roach gleefully covers merry topics such as: practicing surgery on the dead, embalmment, body snatching, the process of decay, human crash test dummies, crucifixion experiments, live burials, human head transplants, ecological (read: green) releasments, and everyone's all-time favourite- cannibalism. All the while Roach manages to honour the dead, yet simultaneously takes deliberate pains not to over-glorify the cadaver-science is science after all. One of the most remarkable aspects about Roach's book is her take on cultural definitions of `acceptable behaviour' in relation to the human carcass.

Tonight, inspired by Roach's second to last chapter: Out of the Fire, into the tissue digester: and other new ways to end up... I asked an agnostic friend if, following her death, she'd be willing to have her body ground into dog food. "No," replied my friend, despite her love for all things canine, "...I don't think so- it seems somewhat undignified." I then asked my friend if she'd be willing to have her remains tossed into the lion pen at her local zoo. My friend replied in the positive, "Most certainly, yes that'd be very cool. Maybe even a shark tank..." Vanity to be certain. Meat either way.

A warning to the queasy: Not for you.

Gee, Mommy, can I too be a STIFF when I grow up?, May 22, 2003
Perhaps author Mary Roach thought the title of her book, STIFF, too ghoulish because she immediately begins in a festive mood:

"... being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you." Carnival, Viking, and Holland America, take note.

As a corpse, you can indeed, as on last summer's voyage to the Bahamas, veg out. Or, as the narrative reveals, be an integral part of other activities. Why, I didn't realize that being dead could be so lively.

First and foremost, your cadaver could become the prize of body snatchers, and subsequently be sold to a medical school for the instruction and amusement of students. Or perhaps you aspire to become a crash test dummy, fodder for the military's munitions tests, or the subject of experiments in composting, freeze-drying or plastination. If you're unlucky enough to die in an airplane disaster of unknown cause, investigators may scrutinize your body, or its widely scattered pieces, for clues as to where in the aircraft the fuselage cracked open or the bomb exploded. Your dissected brain or heart could fuel arguments over the seat of the soul, while other body parts serve as the raw material for disease remedies. Or maybe just be eaten by cannibals. And, if you're the outdoorsy type, you can recline in a grove on a grassy hillside behind the University of Tennessee Medical Center where the various stages of human decomposition are studied and recorded.

STIFF is one of the most fascinating books I've read recently, even after taking into account the "yuk" factor. (In ancient Rome, the blood of freshly slaughtered gladiators was thought to cure epilepsy, while modern day Web sites have recipes for Placenta Lasagna and Placenta Pizza for those who would consume the delicacy to stave off postpartum depression.) This is largely due to the author's chatty style and marvelous sense of humor, which is dry as a mummy. For example, when declaring the existence of a Central Park statue of a certain Dr. Sims, otherwise notable for describing a suitable patient position for gynecological exam, Roach writes in a footnote:

"If you don't believe me, you can look it up yourself, on page 56 of THE ROMANCE OF PROCTOLOGY. (Sims was apparently something of a dilettante when it came to bodily orifices.) P.S.: I could not, from cursory skimming, ascertain what the romance was."

I highly recommend STIFF for the not too squeamish adult, or as a scary Halloween gift for one who is. Or as a bedtime reader for precocious youngsters - they'll think it gross, but way cool, as children are wont to do.

In case you're wondering, there's no photo section.

One of the Best Books of 2003, May 7, 2003
A book about cadavers (well, it's really about death itself) was the last thing I thought I'd ever pick up. But after reading the first few paragraphs, I knew I was in good hands. Sure, the content is fascinating in its own right, but Mary Roach's gift for writing is just as noteworthy. As has been noted elsewhere, she approaches a grisly subject with, alternately, humor, curiosity, forceful opinion (directed mainly at the quacks from previous centuries and their butchery in the name of science), graphic (but not gratuitous) detail, and unfailing respect for her subjects.

Thanks to "Stiff," I'm not so squeamish about issues surrounding the deceased anymore.

Mary Roach is a great writer. This book is a keeper.

Absolutely,Insanely Fantastic, June 18, 2003
I Saw this book on the shelf and the minute I read the first few sentences I was hooked. I read it at work,on the train and at home. This book was so good. Mary Roach is amazing. She is respectful and yet she adds sarcasm and such great humor on a subject matter that many people avoid. I am an avid reader on
forensic science and true crime. But, Ms.Roach opened up a whole new world to me with this book. As a reader you will discover things that will amaze and suprise you. Stiff gives the reader an insider look to what scientists and doctors do in order to try and improve the lives of the living. These people are the brave and silent ones who do what many cannot.This book is definitely a must read for not just the summer but for the year and the year after that.

A weird little guilty pleasure read, April 23, 2004
Who knew a morbid topic like cadavers could provide such a fertile source for humor? I found myself laughing out loud many times while reading this odd but fascinating book. Early on the author states that Stiff is not about the process of dying or the loss of loved ones which are decidedly unfunny topics. It's all about the curious things that human kind has done with the dead over the centuries. Yes, much of it is rather gruesome but it's written in such a humourous and tasteful way as not to be offensive (strange as that may sound). This is not subject matter that most people would be apt to admit an interest in, however there must be a reason there are so many popular "morgue" shows on TV. While certainly not for everyone, if you've ever been curious about the "lives" of cadavers, this one will not disappoint. 4.5 stars.

Would you be my best friend?, April 4, 2004
I first opened the book to the middle and read something about what happpens to bodies when they are donated to science. It was a little hard to read but fascinating information. Then I turned to another page and read about what happens to a human body even after embalming. By then I didn't feel so good. Was it the book or the Mandarin chicken I had for lunch? I kept reading.

I decided I might not be ready to read this book after all. I meant to put it down put somehow found myself starting from the beginning and reading every word. By the time I got to page 22, "You cut off heads. You cut off heads. You cut off heads." I decided that I wanted the author, Mary Roach to be my best friend. The book reads like an histerical conversation between friends about an absolutely morbid topic. The humor helps you through the information you need to know.

The book made me feel a lot better about donating my body or body parts to science. And, I feel a lot better about being a journalist and writing as well. A fascinating read.

Fun with the Dead, April 24, 2003
I loved this book. It is filled with great history and ever surprising humor. Roach makes the creepiest and most unsettling situations and themes interesting and compelling.The writing is crisp, illuminating and at times screw ball and as I contemplated corpses in their many activites and professions I gained a new respect for them. I don't think I want my body used as a crash test dummy or have a group of medical students slice me up but Roach gives a new respect to people who give their bodies for these uses. A must read for the curious with a sense of humor. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Vividly illustrated in color, this text presents a simplified and interactive format for rapid comprehension. Emphasizes understanding rather than memorizing. Previous edition: c1996. For students. Softcover. ... Read more

Reviews

I've seen 'em all -- by and far, Dubin's book is the best!!, April 7, 1998
Over the last 25 years of my medical career, I have read just about every book published on EKG interpretation. As a full-time educator, I appreciate simplicity, especially when it is totally practical. Of all the texts I've seen, Dubin's "Rapid Interpretation of EKGs" is simply the best. He explains intricate concepts with simplistic beauty, using a unique programmed learning style and original figures. If you don't learn "all there is to know" about EKGs from this book, you will never really understand them the rest of your career... Mikel A. Rothenberg, M.D., Emergency Care Educator, Medicolegal Consultant, Professor of Emergency Medical Services -- American College of Prehospital Medicine.

The best, December 29, 2000
I've worked in SICU for almost 15 years. I like surgical patients because when they "go down," it's usually pretty clear why. Frankly CCU type patients always trouble me. Like most ICU nurses I can pick out your basic abnormal beats and rhythms, but when it comes to a "designer" strip, I head next door to MICU where the "whiz kids" of the EKG monitor hang out! One of the best books I've ever come across for learning almost everything you could possibly want to know about an EKG--either the monitor or the 12-lead--is this book. It's been around at least since the 70s, when I first came across it, and it's still around. Take it from me, there's a good reason for it too. Every few years, I try to review the book again to refresh my memory on "everything you ever wanted to know about EKGs and then some," and I always enjoy the experience. I come away with a sense that I've truely gain something. The book is designed on a programed learning format--an old method perhaps, but in my opinion, still the best one--so you learn a small incriment of information, are asked a question about it and then given the answer immediately thereafter. It really sticks in the memory well, and when reviewing even up to 5 years later, I find I can get through the book rapidly even with the topics I don't regularly use. The book also containes some useful "cards" which can be reproduced and carried conveniently in ones pocket. I still have a set I had laminated for me years ago. Very definately a book worth buying, one worth keeping, and one worth reviewing from time to time.

Wonderful book for med students or anyone who needs to learn, November 12, 2003
This is a wonderful book for nursing or medical students, or anyone who needs to learn EKGs/ECGs. I'm a physician and read EKGs every day and I've never seen another text that was able to teach me the necessary concepts so painlessly. Yes, it *IS* written as if the reader is a third grader and I'm sure that offends some people who have spent their life in school or who want to make people believe that EKG reading is some magical art. Personally I enjoy being taken by the hand and shown everything like it was the first time I'd seen it. I think the teaching method presented here is quit effective for the average Joe or Josephine. Reading EKGs is not magic and this book shows you that anyone *can* really do it. I would strongly encourage anyone who has had trouble grasping the concept of EKGs to pick this book up, and that includes physicians, nurses, students, EMTs, medical technicians, respiratory therapists, heck, ANYONE who wants to learn to read EKGs! I give it my highest recommendation.

Even better in full color!!, November 14, 2003
Over the last 30 years of my medical career, I have read just about every book published on EKG interpretation. As a full-time educator, I appreciate simplicity, especially when it is totally practical. Of all the texts I've seen, Dubin's "Rapid Interpretation of EKGs" is simply the best. He explains intricate concepts with simplistic beauty, using a unique programmed learning style and original figures. The new color 6th Edition adds many completely new diagrams, making learning even easier. It also features new sections on the autonomic nervous system, more detailed information on dysrhythmias, and a nifty set of "Quick Reference Sheets," of course, in full color! If you don't learn "all there is to know" about EKGs from this book, you will never really understand them the rest of your career... Mikel A. Rothenberg, M.D., Emergency Care Educator, Medicolegal Consultant, Professor of Emergency Medical Services -- American College of Prehospital Medicine.

"How to Beat Everybody in EKG", January 2, 2005
I read this book in my third year in medical school. When I first started, I was skeptical because it looked too simple. After finishing the book and attending my rotation, I realized the value of this book. I was able to rapidly read any EKG with no problem. Some of my classmates thought that I had attended a special class!! I have compared t to many other books, this is the best one because of its simple approach and the way that it teaches you. You will never forget how to read an EKG.

The Gold Standard for EKG texts? Get a second opinion!, May 12, 2003
Dr. Dubin's classic manual has become the most popular EKG text among members of the medical profession. Dr. Dubin's book takes a lot of the stress out of the formidable task of learning EKGs through his lighthearted and systematic lesson-based approach. This book covers the basics of EKGs, and provides helpful lessons on rate, rhythm, and basic arrythmias.

As helpful as this book is, however, this text is incomplete. The section on axis determination is not fully instructive, and the text does not offer enough clinical scenarios, as well as it omits a fair number of common abnormalities seen on EKG.

Thaler's text, titled The Only EKG Book You'll Ever Need is a more instructive and comprehensive text, and--in the humble opinion of this doctor--is a superior text for those looking to develop a functional understanding of EKGs.

I'd recommend this book to anyone., October 31, 1999
This was a great book! I am a nursing student and I was a little intimidated at first because I was afraid that a book written by a doctor on the subject matter would be to complex, however he made it very plain and simple. If I can understand Ekg interpretation, anyone can!

The only EKG book a medical student needs, June 24, 2003
As a medical student interested in cardiology, I can say this is by far the best book on the subject of EKGs I've ever read. It may not have every possible pattern, but it lays everything out in a clear, concise, and easy to read and remember format that in invaluable when time is a limiting factor. A true life-saver for any student who wants maximum learning and efficient use of time.

I Came I Saw I Kicked It's a@#, December 18, 2001
From the time i started learning about EKG's, till the point and time this book was bestowed apon me i had no clue on how to read an EKG. I was always always confused. I never knew top from bottom and just tried to memorize as much as i could. That all changed the day this book came in the mail. In a matter of 4 hours i had read more than half it like a story book. The repititions of words (important ones) and relentless number of pictures that were in it made it impossible not to understand. even my mother who is an RN knows how to read EKG's now. THIS BOOK IS JUST SIMPLY OUTSTANDING IN EVERY ASPECT.

The teaching methodology used is just amazing, December 12, 2005
Hello:

The most important reason I bought Dr. Dubin's Rapid Interpretation of EKG's was because I knew nothing about EKG's, and I wanted to learn not the basics, but the most important aspects of EKG. I am an EMT-Basic, but I often work on EMS with EMT-Paramedic level fellows, so my contact with EKG and patients with heart disease is very common.

Looking for the wide variety of EKG books available, I realized that I needed a book that could not only teach the topics I really needed, but that would do it in such an easy way that an EKG newbie like me could end up understanding complex things as myocardial infarction and heart axis.

Dr. Dubin uses a very interesting methodology for teaching. Each page of this book has a highly detailed practical illustration, and the rest of the page is composed of 3 o 4 parragraphs where, using the most practical language available, he explains the concepts related to the illustration. It is impressive how Dr. Dubin manages to explain complicated things so easily by using the detailed illustrations and the correct language.

What's more, Dr. Dubin focuses on making the reader understand why an EKG tracing looks the way it does, and does not rely on memorization of the morphology of waves to justify a diagnose. This is critically important, because once you see an EKG tracing, you clearly understand the details of the pathology showed and that gives you a precise idea of what's happening inside that patient's heart and what treatment can help the patient's outcome.

If you want to introduct yourself into EKG's, then this is the book you need. But don't misunderstand, this book is not basic, it really deals with complex topics too; the thing is that they seem so easy...

This book has really helped me perform better on my job in the pre-hospital setting, and I'm really grateful about that. ... Read more

Editorial Review

From one of the most significant neuroscientists at work today, a pathbreaking investigation of a question that has confounded philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists for centuries: how is consciousness created?
 
Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying and writing about how the brain operates, and his work has garnered acclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and the humanistic. In Self Comes to Mind, he goes against the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, presenting compelling new scientific evidence that consciousness—what we think of as a mind with a self—is to begin with a biological process created by a living organism. Besides the three traditional perspectives used to study the mind (the introspective, the behavioral, and the neurological), Damasio introduces an evolutionary perspective that entails a radical change in the way the history of conscious minds is viewed and told. He also advances a radical hypothesis regarding the origins and varieties of feelings, which is central to his framework for the biological construction of consciousness: feelings are grounded in a near fusion of body and brain networks, and first emerge from the historically old and humble brain stem rather than from the modern cerebral cortex.
 
Damasio suggests that the brain’s development of a human self becomes a challenge to nature’s indifference and opens the way for the appearance of culture, a radical break in the course of evolution and the source of a new level of life regulation—sociocultural homeostasis. He leaves no doubt that the blueprint for the work-in-progress he calls sociocultural homeostasis is the genetically well-established basic homeostasis, the curator of value that has been present in simple life-forms for billions of years. Self Comes to Mind is a groundbreaking journey into the neurobiological foundations of mind and self.

Reviews

Good news and bad news, November 19, 2010
The deep enigma of consciousness has been explored from many directions, including contributions by neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers and a few physicists (both quantum and complex systems scientists). An important study area consists of injuries or diseases that destroy specific brain structures; these clinical events are often closely correlated to nuanced effects on selective aspects of consciousness. Professor Damasio's book makes good use of these data to describe many known neural correlates of consciousness. For purposes of this book, he adopts the working hypothesis that mental states and brain states are essentially equivalent. While many (including this reviewer) find this idea questionable, such tentative hypothesis is quite appropriate for a book of this kind. In science we often adopt useful, if highly oversimplified, models in the early stages of our studies with no illusions that they are perfectly accurate. In this manner "Truth" is (hopefully) approached in a series of successive approximations. Thankfully, Damasio does not claim to "explain" consciousness.

The book's title is based on Damasio's suggestion that our evolutionary history reveals many simple creatures with active "minds" (defined broadly), but only much later did self (awareness) develop; in other words the human self is built in steps grounded in the so-called "protoself." An essential step is the development of homeostatis (life regulation needed to survive) in single cell creatures like bacteria, followed by progressively more complex "societies of cells" in more complex creatures like insects, reptiles, and mammals. Thus consciousness, rooted in our evolutionary past, helps to optimize our responses to the environment so that we may continue our existence. Damasio also describes the self in terms of stages: the protoself, core self and autobiographical self, along with specific brain structures that may support these distinct stages. He concludes that conscious minds emerge from the brain's nested hierarchy of neural networks operating at multiple spatial scales (levels); I will expand on this last point later.

Several chapters consider brain structures that are most essential to mind and consciousness, providing more status to the brain stem and its sub structures than is normally acknowledged by neuroscientists. Damasio's arguments here are based on observations of children born without a cerebral cortex and on several evolutionary considerations. The book cites quite a bit of detailed brain anatomy so non experts should probably read the excellent Appendix on brain structure before tackling any material beyond chapter 2. Normally this suggestion would be offered in a Preface, but this book has none.

I gave the book four stars based on my evaluation of both the good and not so good features: 1) the nice development of a number of important ideas on conscious correlates, 2) the fluff, e.g., some unnecessary technical jargon and the belaboring of obvious points, 3) important omissions. In an example of the latter, I found the memory chapter inadequate given its central role in consciousness. I would have liked to read more about how, where, and at what spatial scales are various kinds of memory stored, or at least given some sense of which parts of the memory puzzle have actually been solved. By loose analogy, if I ask how a TV works, I am unsatisfied by explanations of how to dial in specific channels. Rather, I want to hear about electromagnetic fields and electron guns.

Many readers avoid Endnotes; this may be a mistake. Here is one shining gem involving an interchange between Damasio and Francis Crick, who pointed to several provocative definitions in the International Dictionary of Psychology (1996), providing both these guys quite a laugh. I will not spoil the story by relating the dictionary's definition of "consciousness," but here is this dictionary's definition of "love," "A form of mental illness not yet recognized by any of the standard diagnostic manuals." (Note to my wife, I do not endorse this definition.)

The apparent critical importance of the brain's nested hierarchy to consciousness seemed to me to be substantially understated in Damisio's book. I say this because nested hierarchy is a hallmark of many if not most complex systems, and brains are considered by most to be the pre-eminent complex systems. Think of social systems, for example. They typically consist of persons, neighborhoods, cities, states and nations; their observed dynamic behaviors are fractal-like (scale dependent) and the essence of their behaviors is rooted in the nested hierarchy of interactions at multiple scales, both top-down and bottom-up, the so-called "circular causality" of Synergetics, the science of cooperation and self organization (see books by Hermann Haken). The brain's nested hierarchy and its apparent critical importance to consciousness are discussed in Todd Feinberg's From Axons to Identity Neurological Explorations of the Nature of the Self [HC,2009] and my new book Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality, 2010, which also explores the possible fundamental role of information in both the physical and mental realms. This latter topic is also covered in a series of essays edited by Paul Davies and Neils Gregersen Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics, 2010.

Piecing It All Together., November 22, 2010
Dr. Damasio says that, "This book is dedicated to addressing two questions. First: how does the brain construct a mind? Second: how does the brain make that mind conscious?" Do I think he does an exceptional job of tackling these two questions? Yes, I do.

I believe the greatest strength of this book lies in Dr. Damasio's capacity to take account of vast amounts of information and viewpoints related to mind and consciousness. He has included large swaths of issues that are usually books in and of themselves (Body Maps - The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better, Extended/Embodied Cognition - The Extended Mind (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology), Efficient Computational Theory of Mind - Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions, Selfhood - The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, Free Will - Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context (Bradford Books), Neuroeconomics - Rationality for Mortals: How People Cope with Uncertainty (Evolution and Cognition Series) and Neuroanatomy - Mapping the Mind: Revised and Updated Edition). Furthermore, Dr. Damasio is very forthcoming in demarcating the known from the unknown and the probable from the possible in regards to neuroscience. The only downside I experienced while reading this book is that I felt a little lost, or perhaps impatient, while waiting for Damasio to tie everything together. It was only towards the last half of the book that the big picture began to emerge.

That being said, I believe that this book is a significant advancement in neuroscientific research. Most importantly, I actually understand what Damasio means when he speaks of the proto self, core self, and autobiographical self. His explanation of Convergence-Divergence Zones (CDZ's), as well as anatomical structures, is very effective and his manner of description is so unsophisticated that even a layman like me can understand exactly what he is illustrating. Also, there are many pictures, diagrams, and charts to help too.

In conclusion, I very much enjoyed the substance of this book (the style is somewhat lacking, but hey, it's not supposed to be Shakespeare!). I also took pleasure in the way in which Damasio took a back-handed approach to dismissing a certain philosophers (Daniel Dennett, ahem) approach towards consciousness; I liked it because when it comes to Mind/Brain/Consciousness issues, I think philosophers must necessarily take a supporting role to the neuroscientists. "I see the neurology of consciousness as organized around the brain structures involved in generating the lead triad of wakefulness, mind, and self. Three major anatomical divisions - the brain stem, the thalamus, and cerebral cortex - are principally involved, but one must caution that there are no direct alignments between each anatomical division and each component of the triad. All three divisions contribute to some aspect of wakefulness, mind, and self." A great book, I highly recommend it.

For bumblebee scholars, too., November 25, 2010
As I write this I am trying to assess the three previous reviews which were written by those more scholarly than I. That said, I encourage "bumblebee scholars" such as I to dig in to this seminal work. It can't hurt and might be good for you.

Cautionary Note: If you read the Endnotes you may construct a reading list that will prompt you to delay your demise for at least twenty years beyond your current biological expectancy.

Puts William James on a Modern Foundation of Neuroscience, November 21, 2010
"Self Comes to Mind - Constructing the Conscious Brain" is Antonio Domasio's latest landmark book on the nature of consciousness and how it is created. In his previous book "The Feeling of Knowing" Damasio provided an account that was logically consistent with third party perspectives of philosophy, psychology, plus the latest findings in neuroscience.

In the "Self Comes to Mind" he announces his intention to "start over" with explanations, and he stakes out new ground with a daring first person subjective perspective that is akin to William James view of "my" objects of attention versus "I" as the self or protagonist who is the active agent in the changing stream of consciousness, and "owns" the other objects as "knower". He successfully brings off this new venture of understanding.

He names the two questions to be addressed: how does the brain construct a mind? and how does the brain make that mind conscious? He affirms James' idea of the importance of a self, and brings it alive with his own earlier ideas of the three aspects of self (the proto self, the core self, and the autobiographical self) but develops them more fully in the "Self Comes to Mind" with the active protagonist in mind.

The shift to Damasio's first person subjective protagonist perspective from his prior third person objective prospective takes place when he makes the distinction between neural maps constructed by the brain for information, and images formed in the mind (conscious or unconscious) for use by the protagonist in navigating their external environment to achieve goals having biological and cultural value.

He acknowledges in the Appendix that the mind-brain equivalence hypothesis is not universally liked or accepted. I believe the Domasio's mind-brain hypothesis is logically correct for two main reasons. First, the equivalence of subjective mental images and objective brain neural maps is quite convincing - after all, people can communicate their mental images with one another by talking and listening while paying close attention to each other. A "sentence" can be spoken, listened to, and repeated back to the speaker to confirm error free communication, high fidelity, and understanding of the intended meaning. A third witness can verify the accuracy of the information exchanged. Second, Domasio avoids the common philosophical error of dualism which is so easy to make when moving from the outside objective view to the inside subjective view of the human brain and its mind. Mortimer Adler, renown American philosopher, reminds us that there are three object types (real, subjective, and intentional), and all three must be included when discussing the conscious mind. Intentionality was lost as a philosophical concept since Kant obliterated it. This is OK for mindless rocks, but not for human beings with meaningful language. Domasio puts the Protagonist process back in the Jamesian stream of consciousness with attention and intention. The stream of consciousness runs on a layered foundation of proto self, core self, and extended or autobiographical self.

Part IV is a nice wrap up for the non-specialist public with an deep interest in neurology, psychology, and philosophy of mind. Domasio takes care to not use suit case words that mean different things to different people, and in the process introduces delightful new words that are more general and less controversial.

He introduces the term Genomic Unconscious (page 278) to provide for the biological diversity of dispositions (another new term) to better convey psychological concepts (instinct, automatic behaviors, drives, and motivations) from a neurological foundation. Domasio acknowledges that the Genomic Unconscious has something to do with what Freud and Jung sensed, but avoids getting bogged down on Freud's emphasis on sexuality that caused Jung to break company from him. Jung went on to develop concepts of consciousness (personal consciousness, personal unconsciousness, and the collective unconscious or archetypal realm) and enduring patterns that arise in civilization as it ascends to the pinacle of consciousness. Yes, Genomic Unconscious covers this!

Damasio includes feeling and value as fundamental observables of the self and its objects. He briefly uses the "intuition" word without reservation (page 276). Jung included intuition in his functional classification of sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling. Jung identified four ways of perceiving and judging both the external and the internal objects in the field of consciousness. The subjective sensation function monitors subjective feelings, and the subjective rational valuing function makes judgments as to whether a privately held object of attention is good or bad, OK, or not OK.

On the last two page of the last Chapter, Damasio acknowledges imagination's ability to navigate the future as the ultimate gift of consciousness, and this depends on the intersection of self with memory, tempered by personal feeling, with consideration of the well-being of members of society. Damasio handles mapping vs simulating body states on pages 101-107, and touches on the recent discovery of mirror neuron's ability to simulate body state feeling of another creature (monkeys were the subject) in the observing self's brain-mind. He suggests that being able to simulate or imagine the other "object" would not be possible if the neurological network were not first in place to simulate and imagine one's own "self" in an "as-if" future. It is important that imagination is included in Damasio's new neurologically based model of the intentional attentive protagonist self-in-mind.

James devoted entire Chapters in his two books to imagination and attention. Jung, coming from an empirical study of the mental categories of objective and subjective knowledge, came up with the sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling categories of information that can be held in the conscious mind and witnessed by the small momentary "self", against a longer term unconscious background of the larger "Self". Jung included imagination as an actual perceptual content of the intuition function, but not as a separate intentional function. However, Jung included a fifth transcendent function that comes into play for reconciling opposing tendencies of the functional information about objects. This transcendent function works with symbolic images that may be developed and brought forth in a process described by Jung as active imagination. Jung also identified the two directions of attention and interest known as the extraverted and introverted attitudes of consciousness. Jung's terms extraversion and introversion are widely used today. They are included as options of attentional choice in the MBTI�(Myers Briggs Type Indicator), and as one of the five factors in the Five Factor Model of Personality. Geldart included attention and imagination as functions of intentionality, plus Jung's four functions of perception and judgment for both subjective and objective objects of attention in the EPIC model (Emergent Patterns of Individual Consciousness).

Damasio implicitly puts William James psychological and pragmatic concepts of self, attention, imagination, ideomotor force and steam of consciousness on a modern neurological foundation. I think it is time for Carl Jung's knowledge categories of consciousness (very suitable for the autobiographical self) to be considered for its pragmatic value by scientists of consciousness today. Why so? Jung spoke of the four functions (knowledge aspects) of consciousness (S, N, T, and F) or sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling. Jung described them in his Psychological Types in 1921. Beebe thinks of them as types of consciousness, not types of people [Beebe, J. (2004). Understanding Consciousness through the theory of psychological types, Cambray and Carter (eds.) Analytic Psychology: Contemporary Perspectives in Jungian Analysis]. Brunner-Routledge. Geldart included imagination and intention as functions of intention, along with Jung's four extraverted functions for real external objects and four introverted functions for subjective internal objects of consciousness in the EPIC model (2010).

Damasio has something to say on page 14 about attempts by others to relate a view of the mind as a nonphysical phenomenon with laws of quantum physics. He appeals to relying more on an unfolding understanding from neuroscience instead of possibilities from a more remote and less accessible quantum physics. He prefers not to explain the mystery of conscious mind with another mystery of quantum physics, and refers to several authors leaning on a quantum physics explanation. He does not refer to the work by Schwartz, J. and Begley, S. (2002). The Mind and its Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. Schwartz working with Henry Stapp found that the effect of attention can be modeled in Schrodinger's wave equations that are normally applied to physical matter at the sub-atomic level. They assume that attention can change the odds on which wave function wins and hence which thought wins (page 362, Figure 8 of their book). Obviously, this does not explain how consciousness emerges in mind with associated mental images, nor is this what they intend to do. But it is a creative effort to show that selective attention of the subject-agent (as James described it) is not something metaphysical, but something permitted in the laws of physics. This hardly needs to be proved because Schwartz's book provides ample evidence that learning new habits and unlearning obsessive compulsive habits can be accomplished by harnessing the self's power of attention to achieve actual free will or free won't choices in the transient moments of decision prior to a voluntary response. What makes this challenging is that Domasio's "core self" is a transient phenomenon that provides the only window of opportunity to make a new free will or free won't response in the real world where things are matter and do matter.

I went back to William James to study his understanding of attention as a macroscopic (not quantum physics) phenomenon on the conscious mind side of the mind-brain system. A closer reading of James found that he discovered (without naming it) a psychological quantum of action and intentionality on the scale of fractions of a second to a few seconds. James' indivisible ideomotor action released in body by the self as agent, and James' indivisible privately voiced mental statements about mental images (the pack of cards is on the table) are pragmatic evidence of a psychological quantum of action effect. This predates quantum effects in physics.

Antonio Domasio's new book "Self Comes to Mind:Constructing the Conscious Brain" is delightful, well worth waiting for, and well worth reading over and over. It's bound to become a classic.

Walter Geldart developed a logical model that integrates William James' intentional functions of attention and imagination with Carl Jung's perception (sensation and intuition) and judgment (thinking and feeling) functions of consciousness. The information is held briefly in working memory. The mathematical model predicts emergent patterns that are analogous to information patterns owned by a "core self" (Domasio). The predicted patterns can be interpreted with definitions from philosophy,psychology, and neurology. The EPIC model is inclusive. It omits no necessary categories of object types (all three real, subjective, and intentional object type categories of philosophy are present). Then it maps ten necessary and sufficient psychological functions from Jung and James to the correct object type categories and to their own position in ten intervals in the momentary indivisible event cycle of consciousness (the Jamesian quantum of psychological activity). It then becomes possible to predict emergent strings of functional content of consciousness using the mathematics of prime number division of the integral duration of the event cycle.


The Epic Roles of Consciousness: Emergent Patterns of Individual Consciousness - Paperback (Jan. 15, 2010) by Walter J. Geldart

Resolving the "Mind-body" Problem through Mental Cartography, December 20, 2010
Professor Damasio begins this incredible story using Darwin's Theory of Evolution as the driving force and centerpiece of a theoretical odyssey that is as intimate as it is cogent and thorough. For the author, the theory of how the mind becomes "self" is a labor of love, surely his professional life quest: the last remaining riddle of the universe, now finally solved by the life work of this author. It is told so carefully, so cogently, and with such clarity and depth that it amounts to a convincing love story that will simply take the breath away.

This book is sure to be one of the finalists in the National Science Book of the year Award. It certainly gets my vote!

At the center of this incredible story (and the author's theory) is the ever-evolving cell: that powerful "active" (but much underrated) building block of all living systems. With the evolution of the cell, which importantly, has, since its inception, always had the capacity to be a "stand-along," "purposefully surviving" functional living system and unit of life. That is to say as a "proto-animal," the cell brings intrinsically into being the functional aspects of an "intentional life." The mind is simply one of the latest evolutionary adaptations of this exquisite carefully balanced, living piece of architecture called (animal) life. One of the key remaining unanswered properties of a cell is that it comes with the "will to survive," built-in? How it does this?-- the author does not touch with a ten-foot pole; and this remains the only flaw in the design, as the research leaves unanswered, and thus begs this most important of questions. But more about that later.

As Professor Damasio demonstrates so elegantly, having a "proto-animal" as the functional building block of life is no small matter. But in fact is a very large matter indeed. It is qualitatively different than say that of having a dead (and thus passive) object (such as an inactive or dead cell or a brick) as the building block of a system. For as the cell has evolved, it's inherent (and unexplained) but powerful and purposeful "will to survive" has also evolved to promote much more specialized and infinitely more complex survival requirements, components and imperatives.

This increased specialization and complexity combined with the unexplained need for a cell to survive, alone appear to be the key elements explaining human motivation, the economics of value, "intention," "anticipation," the ability to predict, the need to reason and plan, as well as "will" itself. Arguably, it is these unexplained aspects of the cell that drive the machinery of life, self and the life of the mind. With it, the cell (as well as the body as organism), is motivated to adapt in order to live, and as a result of this built in imperative, it has "learned" over eons how to coalesce and combine with other cells to form "colonies," which over those years have also evolved into specialized sub-components (such as organs of the body, etc.) and ultimately into organisms and other larger living eco-systems themselves -- all engineered and controlled by the DNA of the genes (or their equivalents, mimes of culture).

It is the members of these specialized groups of cells, the neuron in particular, that is the protagonist and hero of this story: One that in my view finally gets the mystery of consciousness out into the open, and the story about consciousness, the self, emotions and feelings, right. The neuron is not just a cell, but the "micro system" at the cellular level that through its signaling, mapping, imaging and messenger roles, is pretty much responsible for sculpting, and controlling the activity of the larger macro system called the body (or organism).

Nothing in science is quite so dense, so elegant, so surprising, so cogent, or so beautiful as the author's carefully honed and incremental descriptions, that build into a crescendo, of how the neuron through evolution has resolved the long-standing and formidable "mind-body" problem. That problem is dispatched as a matter of course, and so easily and with such elegance that it reduces simply to a side issue dealing with the question of the need for the body to maintain less than a dozen or so parameters within very narrow homeostatic ranges.

In it role as the conductor of a symphony of a multilayered orchestra of cells, it is the neuron's job as the CEO of that operation to maintain the body in the necessary homeostatic condition. However, "body maintenance" is a job that predated even the brain and exists even in animals without a conscious mind. These "proto-mental" capacities were important antecedents to the mentality that eventually encompassed what we have come to know as "conscious mentality." Therefore the older brainstem, which still "maintains" the body through passive processes and processing, is strongly implicated and shown to necessarily have been a precursor to the more complex later set of brain operations that we have come to recognize as the "self" and as consciousness.

The neuron conducts the body's orchestra of both "normal body maintenance" as well as its self-reflective activities, which actually create the "self." The neuron does this by being a serious multi-tasker; one scripted to provide the charts for the music of the body: its feelings and emotions (which just happen to bring them into being). The sheet music comes in the form of interactive maps, images and bi-directional messages of the cell's and the organism's activities, all brought together as a symphony of managed anticipation, forward feedback and pre-processing, predictions, storage, retrievals and editing from memory, and the channeling of interests and attention -- all in defense of maintaining homeostasis -- that is to say in defense of the body's (or the system's or organism's) global survival interests. The summation of this mostly cartographic activity, called up as perceptions, maps and images, from either inside or outside the brain, is what constitutes the brain's response to the imperatives of life. We sense this constant teeming brain activity as conscious feelings and emotions that we can uniquely attach to the self. QED.

All of this exquisite complexity is resolved beautifully in the Occam's Razor sense. To wit: No other theory, so far, explains what the brain or the mind does quite as economically as does Professor Damasio's. No other theory explains how the "self" comes into being quite so cogently as Professor Damasio's. No other theory explains how evolution plays such a critical role in the development of this orchestra as does that of Professor Damasio's. And all of this knowledge is gained by him the hard way: through careful observation of diseased brains, of split-brain research, through the author's on over-sized introspective brain, and by the pulling together of the research of nearly every fruitful avenue in neurology over the last century. To say that this book is a tour de force would be an understatement.

Because Professor Damasio's theory does not even attempt to explain where the cell's "will to survive" comes from, it leaves the back door open for the "Intelligent Designers" to pounce on. I predict that it will be just a matter of time before they seize on this single isolated fact as an opportunity to say that: it is a god that implants this will to live into the cell? Surely, they will do this, but when they do, it will be a poison pill as surely they can then will be able to see that they have walked into a trap of their own making: as they then will have no choice but to accept Darwin's theory of evolution as god's own handiwork. If they want to do that, then fine. It simply makes god superfluous, as we already knew he always was. Fifty stars.

A few thoughts, December 18, 2010
I'm in no way a neuroscientist or someone with deep psichology or neurology knowledges. I'm just an interested layman that finds the subject at hand fascinating. I'm also perfectly aware from the fields that I study that there are frequently several contesting theories, and rarely there's consense over all the minutiae.

I must commend the other reviewers for the excellent commentaries on this work. I will not be so thourough and analytical.

This book might take some time to read and absorb the contents, specially if you lack bases of anatomy and neurology (like me), altough professor Damasio tries to simplify matters with many metaphors and practical examples. Many aspects are covered in this work, including the construction of maps through our "objectives"; how memory works and how do we reconstruct things from memory (although sometimes lacking details) through the Convergence Divergence Zones; the importance of homeostasis and mechanisms of reward-punishment; the construction of conscience and the importance of the Cerebral Cortex, but also of the Thalamus and the brain stem! Not forgetting the effects and relation between culture, society and biology of the brain among many other fascinating subjects (like the Qualia).

Naturally we are only scratching the surface on how our brain works and what makes the self, but with the work of Professor Damasio and several other top neuroscientists slowly we will take conscience on how conscience works. ... Read more

Editorial Review

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries- old notion that the human brain is immutable. In this revolutionary look at the brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., provides an introduction to both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed. From stroke patients learning to speak again to the remarkable case of a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, The Brain That Changes Itself will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential. ... Read more

Reviews

The Leopard Can Change His Spots, March 25, 2007
Neuroplasticity has recently become a bit of a buzzword. Long the preserve of neuroscientists, this is one of a number of new books on the topic written for the public.

I recently reviewed Sharon Begley's superb book - Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain - and this one is in a similar vein. Though it is rather different from Sharon's book in which the main focus was on the changes wrought in the brains of meditators, while this one looks at the extraordinary responses of the brain to injury or congenital absence of sensory organs. Since this book went to press, yet another study, this time from India, has shown that some blind children may be able to regain their sight, an observation that is helping turn a lot of neurology on its head.

Neuroplasticity is a topic of enormous practical importance. The increasing evidence that the brain is a highly adaptable structure that undergoes constant change throughout life is a far cry from the idea that we are simply the product of our genes or our environment. Our genes help determine how we can respond to the environment; they do not make us who we are. And we all have untapped potential. This is more than the old nature/nurture debate in a new bottle. It has implications for human potential: how much can you develop your own brain and mind? Can you really teach a child to be a kind, loving person who can dramatically exceed his or her potential? Can psychotherapy really help change your brain for the better? Can we help re-wire the brain of a psychopath? Do we have the right to try?

The author is both a research psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst who has interviewed many experts in the field. His book is full of well chosen and detailed stories about scientists and their discoveries as well as case reports of triumph over unbelievable adversity. There is also a good discussion of people who have remarkable abilities despite the absence of key regions of the brain.

This book is a good complement to Sharon Begley's and if you can afford it, then I strongly recommend that you get both books. If your interest is more in personal development and its effects on the brain, then Sharon's book will be the one for you. If you are more interested in the science and anecdotes about scientists and some amazing patients, then this book may be the one to go for.

Highly recommended.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

Excellent balance of case history, theory, and empirical research, July 11, 2007
This is one of the most interesting nonfiction books that I have *ever* read. I found the book fascinating, but lest that be chalked up to my being a psychologist, my husband the computer scientist found it fascinating, too.

Scientists used to believe that the brain was relatively fixed and unchanging -- some of them still believe that -- but recent research shows that the brain is much more mutable than biologists, psychologists, physicians (and any other scientists who studied brains) had ever thought.

For example, anecdotal evidence had long supported the idea that blind people hear better than sighted people, but scientists pooh-poohed this idea, saying that there was no mechanism for that to occur. Well, they recently discovered that the area of the brain usually called the visual cortex is taken over for auditory processing in blind people. So blind folks have twice as much brain space devoted to processing sounds, which means that they really do hear better, and now we know why. Scientists were astounded to discover that the "visual" cortex was really just brain space that could be used for anything.

Psych 101 and Bio 101 textbooks often have a picture in them that shows which areas of the brain control which bodily functions, and this is all presented as fixed and unchanging. Imagine our surprise to learn that the brain can make fairly large shifts in just a few days -- for example, if you blindfold somebody for five days, the area of their brains that's usually called the visual cortex starts using large sections of itself to process touch and sound, and this change is made in as little as two days. Two days!

The book is not just theoretical, though -- the author is interested in the theory, but he's even more interested in how all of this can be applied to better the lives of real people. He talks about people with strokes who've learned to walk again, people with vestibular problems who've learned to substitute something else for their missing vestibular system, people who've been helped with ADHD, autism, retardation, and many other "incurable" conditions by altering their brains.

The downside of the book is that the author is a Freudian, so there are some annoying comments about how Freud knew it all along, but if you can overlook that, it's all fascinating. The author does an excellent job of drawing the reader in with a story about a real person, then elaborating on the ideas by talking about studies that show the basic principles and their implications, then explaining how this can be used to ameliorate or even cure conditions that were considered incurable.

This book blew me away!

The chapter titles will give you more information about the subject matter:

1. A Woman Perpetually Falling...: Rescued by the Man Who Discovered the Plasticity of Our Senses
2. Building Herself a Better Brain: A Woman Labeled "Retarded" Discovers How to Heal Herself
3. Redesigning the Brain: A Scientist Changes Brains to Sharpen Perception and Memory, Increase Speed of Thought, and Heal Learning Problems
4. Acquiring Tastes and Loves: What Neuroplasticity Teaches Us About Sexual Attraction and Love
5. Midnight Resurrections: Stroke Victims Learn to Move and Speak Again
6. Brain Lock Unlocked: Using Plasticity to Stop Worries, Obsessions, Compulsions, and Bad Habits
7. Pain: The Dark Side of Plasticity
8. Imagination: How Thinking Makes It So
9. Turning Our Ghosts into Ancestors: Psychotherapy as a Neuroplastic Therapy
10. Rejuvenation: The Discovery of the Neuronal Stem Cell and Lessons for Preserving Our Brains
11. More than the Sum of Her Parts: A Woman Shows Us How Radically Plastic the Brain Can Be
Appendix 1: The Culturally Modified Brain
Appendix 2: Plasticity and the Idea of Progress

Highly recommended!

worth reading, with caveats, July 6, 2008
I have a general professional interest in psychology and brain science, which often leads me to be frustrated by the tendency towards reductionism and exaggeration. This book looked promising to me because the author is advertised as a psychoanalyst--something that usually does not mesh well with neuroscience. I was intrigued to see how Freud might think about modern psychology's biological determinism. On that score, I found The Brain That Changes Itself reasonably satisfying; the chapter on how neural plasticity can help us understand the impact of psychotherapy was among the best in the book. I very much appreciate the emphasis on how experience (including talk therapy) and culture, not just genes and drugs, shape the brain. That is something that is easy to miss in viewing the pretty brain scans of contemporary popular science. I also found the appendix on how culture works through neural plasticity interesting, although I don't find it helpful to define culture as Doidge seems to--something akin to cultivation and taste (a definition that leads to a problematic hierarchy of cultures based on somewhat arbitrary criteria). It is, however, important to recognize that culture and the brain have a reciprocal relationship.

My main concern with the book is that much of the argument seems to imply that the brain is infinitely malleable with the right exercises and effort. Though Doidge does note at points that plasticity is not infinite, he also seems to endorse the very American cultural script that individuals have total control over everything that happens to them. If babies are properly stimulated they will all be geniuses! If ADHD children go through the proper attentional exercises they will suddenly excel! If the elderly go to brain gyms they will never lose their memory! These, unfortunately, are primarily openings for marketers rather than scientific realities. Of course we have some control, and the key findings of neural plasticity research have been helpful in supporting that, but there are some things that are not just about effort--but also about care and community. Overall, I did find this book interesting and worth reading, but also found myself worried about what seemed to me strategic exaggeration.

Helpful, hopeful, heartwarming, April 17, 2007
I have taken an interest in mind/brain science over the past several months. Having started my nursing career on a medical neurology ward, I "grew up" with the localizationist interpretation of brain function and of the irreversible nature of brain damage. One couldn't help, however, having seen evidence in the course of ones practice that overwhelmingly contradicted the accepted view, so I was very pleased to see that so much has been done lately in researching the plasticity of the brain and its ability to "fix" or at least bypass damage to its structure.

The author, a psychologist with a practice in Canada, approaches his narrative almost as a journalist. He has researched the field and interviewed many of those who have been responsible for breakthroughs in mind/brain science. He gives a brief personal biography and characterization of the scientist as an individual, and then goes on to report the results of their research and the contributions that the work has provided individual patients. Here too the persons' lives and experiences are provided so that each becomes real to the reader. In this way the actual advances are given very personal meaning and significance.

In my opinion, the book should be a must read for neurology residents--if it or something like it has not already been added to the core curriculum. The research and the individual representative cases provided are an amazing illustration of what has and may be done in the near future of neurological diseases and disorders. Certainly anyone with a neurological disorder will find the information inspiring and hopeful. No longer is he or she expected to learn to "accept" their disability or to "learn to live with it." More active approaches to treatment seem to work far better than had been believed by earlier generations of neuroscientists and physiotherapists. Most important is the issue of providing treatment for disabilities, of extending and intensifying therapies not just to a fixed time decided upon arbitrarily but to a point when actual change and improvement are seen to occur. Some of the illustrative cases are certainly exceptional, maybe even just "lucky" individuals, but many of them derived considerable benefit from the approaches used to treat their disability by researchers.

Among the most amazing stories are those of stroke victims who have recovered almost entirely from their neurological damage and returned to an active life. Others are about new technologies for providing sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and greater autonomy to the movement impaired. Some of the findings about the aging brain are especially interesting and hopeful. In fact I was so impressed with some of it, that I gave the book to a friend who also worked in neurology in "the old days" and who is now dealing with the issues of living with her mother whose memory is gradually failing and whose everyday life is getting to be more and more difficult and complicated.

A superb book.

The Review That Wrote Itself, March 27, 2007
A revolution is now sweeping through the field of brain science, and this book chronicles the stories of the men and women who have ushered in a new age. The brain is no longer viewed as a machine that is hard-wired early in life, unable to adapt and destined to "wear out" with age. Instead, we learn that scientists are beginning to unlock the secrets of the powerful, lifelong, adaptability - or "plasticity" - of the brain. The implications are enormous for treating neurological disease, for addressing the aging process and for dramatic improvements in human performance. Author Norman Doidge is a psychiatrist on the Columbia faculty and he tells one spell-binding story after another, as he travels the globe interviewing the scientists and their subjects who are on the cutting edge of a new age. Each story is interwoven with the latest in brain science, told in a manner that is both simple and compelling. It may be hard to imagine that a book so rich in science can also be a page-turner, but this one is hard to set down.

Astonishing Stories of Damaged Brains Repairing Themselves, June 15, 2007
"The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science" by Norman Doidge, is an easily readable, enjoyable, and thought-provoking book that gives the nonprofessional an overview of the new science of neuroplasticity--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections over the life span. We learn that the brain is no longer thought of as being hard-wired, that people are no longer believed to be merely products of their genes and environment, and that damaged brains have the remarkable ability to repair themselves.

Doidge recounts stories of real people who have benefited from advances in neuroplasticity. He gives us just enough background information about each case so that we find ourselves genuinely caring about these people--each person comes to life, like characters in a fine novel. He tells us stories about stroke victims with major physical dysfunction who were able to recover nearly everything that they lost, and then go on to live normal lives again. There is an astonishing story of a woman who lost her balance mechanisms; with help from neuroplasticians, she was able to rewire her brain to use other senses to achieve the same goal. We learn that neuroplastic physicians can design high-technology devices capable of bringing sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and movement to the paralyzed. We learn about an utterly courageous woman who, completely on her own, was able to rewire her brain to compensate for a large number of severe learning disabilities. Eventually, she goes on to found a very successful network of schools devoted to the methodologies she used.

The basic concept is simple: the brain can change itself--rewire itself, so to speak. Often it needs only a little structured help to force it into making the new connections.

The implications of this new science are staggering. Imagine retraining the brains of the severely mentally disadvantaged--the learning disabled, the autistic...perhaps even the psychopath--so that they are able to function almost normally in society. Imagine the impact this new science may have on prison rehabilitation, special education, psychiatry, and rehabilitation therapy, to name but a few. This is a truly astonishing new frontier, and Doidge makes the concepts easy and enjoyable. I recommend this book highly.

Exciting new understanding of the brain written by 'true believer', May 28, 2008
This is a book that my men's book club enjoyed. I also enjoyed the book, but found the author to be a bit of true believer - if what he claims is true most every case of autism, paralysis, tinitis, and other neurological disorders can be fixed by taking advantage of the new understanding that the brain can create new routes and perhaps new nerves. The range of impact of this approach is staggering and will have implications for many years to come. The topics covered include sexual attraction, social skills, 'itches' of amputated limbs, fetishism, spatial reasoning, stroke recovery, feelings from phantom limbs, pain of phantom limbs, pornography addiction, cognitive decline, OCD, and even blindness. As you can tell, I found the information of various cases exciting and offering great promise, but I also found the lack of a balanced presentation by the author to be disconcerting.

Good Book but Definitely Not an Intro to Neuroscience, August 29, 2008
For decades now there has been a longstanding feud between biologists and psychologists on how the human brain forms and develops -- otherwise known as the nature versus nurture debate. Evolutionary biology teaches us that genes is destiny, and with his book the Canadian psychiatrist Norman Doidge makes his case for individual agency and cultural influences.

Like Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, & Steel" Dr. Doidge's book is not original research but rather a synthesis and summary from the frontiers of brain science. Supplemented with case studies "The Brain that Changes Itself" is about neuroplasticity, which argues that the brain is "plastic," or organic and malleable. For hundreds of years, thanks to thinkers like Rene Descartes, scientists have thought of the brain as mechanical, certain functions localized to certain sectors in this machine -- over time it rusts, with no chance of regeneration. Thanks to decades of research by a brave few who dared to defy their mainstream bethren and to the invention of brain scans neuroplasticity is now the accepted view.

The good news about neuroplasticity is that the brain you have is the brain you make it. New external stimuli (such as learning a new language) causes new neural connections in the brain (the "neurons that fire together wire together" rule of neuroplasticity). Often when we're learning a new language or skill after some fast improvement in the early stages we reach a plateau where we seem to have no improvement at all. Then after a while we suddenly make a great leap. That's because it takes time (as measured by nights of good sleep) for these neural connections to consolidate themselves but once they do we can move onto the next level. Of course if we don't keep on practising this skill these connections will weaken (the "use it or lose it" rule of plasticity) because space in the brain is, after all, limited.

Individual agency over our brains gives great hope to those who suffer from aging and brain damage. Scientists have developed brain exercises on the computer to help the elderly maintain a sharp and alert mind, and help stroke victims restore once lost cognitive functions.

The bad news is that the brain you have is the brain that you make it, and unfortunately most of us choose the path of least resistance and decide not to use it at all. As Dr. Doidge explains the plastic paradox means that exposing yourself to new stimuli can make the brain flexible but choosing to stay within your comfort zone will also make the brain rigid. Learning is fast and furious when we're kids but as we reach adulthood the brain becomes less plastic, making learning more difficult, and instead of choosing to learn most of us choose merely to rely on our current belief system. And when the world challenges this belief system we choose to ignore the world, and if forced we'll opt to fight the world. Thus, the plastic brain that allows us to learn new languages can also paradoxically make us intolerant and racist.

Indeed, as Dr. Doidge warns us, the individuals that he profiles who have managed to change themselves have done so because they make a honest and hard commitment to change themselves. Dr. Doidge's patients went into psychotherapy (which operates from the principles of neuroplasticity) to discover how trauma created unhealthy neural connections, and how through discussion, self-analysis, and will-power to create new neural connections. But this process is painful and costly and takes many years.

And it's so hard because the brain is so adept at protecting us. When we suffer a physical injury the brain will actually decide on what the appropriate level of pain we feel is. And when we're traumatized when we're young (for example, our mother dies or we're sexually abused) the brain will often decide to not convert this experience into long-term memory, and build defenses to disassociate ourselves from the possible pain of further trauma. The net effect is that our hippocampus -- the area of our frontal lobe that transfers experience into long-term memory, and thus what governs our ability to learn -- will shrink, thereby giving a scientific explanation to why adult victims of childhood trauma seem so adolescent and immature.

Neuroplasticity offers hope though: love. It seems that our neural network will automatically become more flexible in two critical periods of our adulthood: when we fall in love, and when we have children. Presumably it's because in both instances we need to urgently learn a new skillset to match the two most important circumstances we could find ourselves in. So being in love with someone does allow you to change who you are. Of course, being the circumspect doctor, Dr. Doidge reminds us that if we find ourselves in love with the wrong person we can change for the worst as well, seeing our confidence and healthy attitude suddenly shatter.

I'm not sure how Dr. Doidge would view my summary of his book, because I've taken great liberty in summarizing it. It's a pithy book and there's really a lot of refreshing and insightful material in the book but I'm not happy about the writing style -- which seems rushed and choppy to me -- and the organization, which hurts the clarity and effectiveness of the book. I've read quite a lot on the workings of the brain so I could follow through most chapters but I think a novice will have a particularly hard time reading this book. For a great introduction to how the mind works I suggest watching the BBC documentary series "The Human Series," hosted by Robert Winston -- possibly the greatest documentary series ever made.

Unhappy porn addicts, check out chapter 4, January 8, 2010
Doidge's chapter on acquired sexual tastes is much needed for today's heavy porn users, some of whom are experiencing miserable unexpected side effects from their Internet porn habits. He addresses familiar symptoms like desensitization to normal sex, erectile dysfunction, escalation to watching things the viewer doesn't even like just to climax, and the deterioration of relationships.

Without moralizing Doidge explains that, "Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure." He makes the interesting point that if mankind's attraction to porn were purely the product of millions of years of evolution, tastes would be similar and wouldn't change over time. Instead,

"Hardcore pornography now explores the world of perversion, while softcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago. ... When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don't say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content."

So if you want to understand the mechanics of how you (or your beloved) got hooked, this book is useful. Unfortunately, Doidge's patients were apparently mated men, and he seems to underestimate the difficultry of withdrawal from porn addiction for single guys whose addiction has resulted in social isolation. Single men need lots of social contact and support during the lengthy, often agonizing, withdrawal required to unhook from Internet porn use. (See "The Road To Excess" [...]) Still, Doidge's book offers hope just by virtue of explaining what has happened in guilt-free terms, and can motivate an unhappy user to face the challenge of withdrawal.

Seriously flawed, November 2, 2009
The most fascinating thing about this book is the nearly complete lack of honest critical response to Doidge's book.

Doidge, a Freudian psychoanalyst, has no training in neurobiology, and prior to this book has published next to nothing relevant to the topic. He makes two fundamental errors in the way he tells his story.

The first of these is the division he makes between "localizationists" and "neuroplasticians". No one working in neuroscience would take seriously the straw man position that Doidge puts forth for localizationists, that there is "one location, one function" and that the brain operates as an unchangeable machine. It is one of the most fundamental axioms of neuroscience that neural changes underlie any learning mechanism. No one would seriously postulate that brains *don't* change a great deal during the life of an organism. Even those involved in the practice of understanding how functions are localized (e.g., speech in the left hemisphere) would not suggest that there is anything special or unchangeable about the physical location, that this location couldn't change after brain injury. Mainstream neuroscience, not a marginalized fringe, has long been aware of the adaptations and plasticity that can happen after a stroke or other brain damage. Doidge seriously misrepresents himself as the champion of a movement.

The second error is the implication that brains are infinitely malleable. He presents a cherry-picked set of case studies and select experiments that might suggest that this is the case, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest exactly the opposite conclusion. Doidge even goes as far as to intimate that any neurological condition can be fixed with the right training. Autism, dyslexia, maybe even Alzheimer's. This is seriously misleading at best.

One of the traps that Doidge falls into is the excessive use of "brainspeak". Many of the examples and implications that he talks about are behavioral, and a brain description is really not the appropriate level. After a while, the term "brain map" has lost a good deal of it's punch as it's applied to anything at all. He suggests that Freud was ahead of his time because, in essence, psychotherapy is "changing your brain maps". Well, yes. But so is any learning at all; there's no privileged place for psychoanalysis. In essence, Doidge is trying to convince you that evidence for brain plasticity should let you know that YOUR brain (and life) can be changed. But in many ways the brainspeak is an unnecessary diversion. The world is full of stories of personal triumph, and those enough are evidence that personal triumph is possible. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction

When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the countyhospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.

Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness aand healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg--the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices.
... Read more

Reviews

A divine liqueur distilled from a murky cultural clash, April 6, 1998
I was one of the physicians involved in the care of Lia Lee. I'm referred to in the book as the physician that first diagnosed Lia's spells as seizures. Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, the principal pediatricians in the book, were and are good friends of mine. Having experienced Lia Lee's saga personally, and then having read the book, I can only refer to Anne Fadiman's talent as astounding. Anne walks an incredibly fine, and very well documented, line as she describes what happens when American medical technology meets up with a deep and ancient Eastern culture. My team (Western medicine) failed Lia. Never have I felt so fairly treated in defeat, and never have I felt so much respect for an author's skillful distillation of a tragically murky confrontation of cultures.

ADDENDUM (8/8/09) I wrote the above review almost a decade ago. The experiences that I had during the events described in this book have continued to guide the way that I practice medicine. The Spirit Catches You has become a true classic in the medical and anthropological fields, being read in college, medical school, and nursing classes throughout the United States every year. This speaks to the enduring quality of the work that Anne Fadiman did in a book that remains unique in the skill with which it was written. The story it contains remains fresh and astoundingly relevant to the practice of medicine in particular, and cross-cultural relationships in general.

This is an exceptional piece of work!!, November 4, 1997
I don't think I should be writing in here since I am a part of the book. This book was amazing! It took me two days to read it and of course I shed a few tears on the way. My sister, Lia Lee, is doing well although she will never be able to see the bright sunlight or the incredible stars that we see everyday and everynite. She is an incredible child with so much love and affection from her family and the many friends she have encountered during her hardships. I was only 7 when all this happened, but I do recall everything from the door slamming incident to the day the doctors told my family that it was okay for her to come but she will not live pass 7 days. I will never forget that week or those many years of pain my family or the doctors had to go through. This book has given me a better view of what can really happen when two different cultures have their own ways of interpreting medicine or life in general. We must understand that different cultures have different ways of curing a person and doctors have their policy they must follow. To avoid another incident like this, we must work together as a whole and not blame each other for not cooperating with one another. Lets hope this book tells us what can happen in the future if we don't work with this now. Anne did a great job on this book! My family couldn't have ask for more. She has become a great friend of my family and we are greatful for it. Anne-thank you !

AS A HMONG AMERICAN, April 7, 2000
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall is a novel based on the clash of two cultures---the Hmong culture and the American culture. A little Hmong girl is diagnosed with epilepsy which her parents believe is caused by spirits. Because of this belief, they try to cure her illness not with western medication but their own Hmong ways. There is a huge misunderstanding between the parents and the doctors that Anne Fadiman explores. Anne Fadiman provides readers with a vivid, detailed history of the Hmong in Laos to their involvement in the Vietnam War to their struggles in America that explains this clash. On the other hand, she also explains why Americans see and felt the way they did about the Hmong culture particularly the doctors. One shortcoming is that the author implies that Hmong Americans and their experiences are completely homogenous, but the beauty of this book is that she is able to view both sides without judgment. As a Hmong American, it's hard to imagine an American who can achieve this, but the author achieves this so beautifully. It's hard to look at something from a totally different perspective especially because westerners are very rigid about their beliefs and have a sense of superiority in regards to other cultures thus I was shocked that Fadiman was able to communicate and understand the Hmong in such a way. She did a great job of digging beyond the surface and really understanding the Hmong people, their beliefs, and where they are coming from. As a Hmong American, I think she did a great job! She talked of things that I couldn't imagine an American even knowing about until I read this book. It's great to know that an American can look at the Hmong culture without judgment and even come to admire it and see some good in it even though it's very different from her own beliefs. I recommend this book to anyone especially those that are interested in learning more about the Hmong.

A spirit caught me up in this book, January 21, 2000
Anne Fadiman's book is a fascinating account of what happens when a left-brain culture (the American medical establishment) and a right-brain culture (a Hmong refugee family) go on collision course over a very ill little girl.

Lia Lee is epileptic; she has uncontrollable seizures which require medical intervention and treatment. Lia's doctors see her family as negligent and ignorant because their inability to follow a complicated medical regimen makes her condition deteriorate; her family see the doctors as arrogant and insensitive, and insist the medicine they are giving her actually made her sicker. The tragedy is that both the doctors and the family genuinely want to help Lia, but their total lack of communication and inability to understand each other, linguistically and culturally, makes cooperation impossible. Those of us in the 'helping' professions (medicine, nursing, social work) often lose sight of the fact that the relationship between 'helper' and 'helpee' is most effective when each sees the other as an equal partner who deserves equal consideration and respect; instead, the 'helpers' often dole out advice and directions which the 'helpees' are expected to follow without question, and are then labeled backwards, resistant, or even negligent, when they refuse.

The book zeroes in on the dangers of ethnocentric thinking in working with or treating people of different cultures; the Lees may have been illiterate and 'backwards' by American cultural standards, but they knew and loved their child. We end up admiring and respecting the Hmong for their warm family life and their support of each other in times of crisis, as well as respecting the medical personnel who grew as human beings as they came to recognize the Lees' humanity and their incredible strengths as parents. Many, if not most, American families would institutionalize a child such as Lia; but to her family, the sicker she became, the more precious she became. Anne Fadiman has given us an informative, excellently researched, uplifting and yet humbling book about a very special family and a very special child.

Judy Lind

Eye-opening and sobering, July 29, 2000
As a professional educator who works with Hmong students and their families, I relished the opportunity to read this book, hoping to gain some understanding into the culture and values of the Hmong community. What I got was a fist-in- the-gut experience that left me practically breathless. I finished the book in less than a day - a day in which I accomplished little else. Fadiman knows her topic well and writes with refreshing clarity and brutal honesty. The Hmong are resistant to adaptation of western values - a fact that had long frustrated me and left me somewhat skeptical of their willingness to adapt to life in this country. I now realize that the clash of cultures goes well beyond geographic and language issues. Deeply spiritual and devoted to their families and clans, every facet of Hmong life revolves around the spiritual.

Fadiman's book is a cross between a case study and ethnic history. The case is that of a young girl stricken with epilepsy, and her family's struggle against western medicine and medical doctors. The history is a broad ranging but concise history of the Hmong people.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in culture clashes, and especially for anyone who knows a Hmong, or works with them. It will open your eyes.

Very Interesting, Even for a Hmong, January 15, 2004
I am an educated Hmong woman. I was motivated to read this book by my older brother who has a degree in Anthropology. Before reading this book, I thought that I knew enough about my culture and that I didn't need to read a book which tries to explain my own culture to me - yet, I have found the information in this book very interesting. I've learned new things about my own culture that I didn't know before, such as the perception of the Hmong through the American people. One thing that I especially appreciated about Anne Fadiman's work in this book is that she seems to give it as it is. For instance, she would even quote some one when they responded negatively towards the Lee family. Another is that she would talk about how Hmong people would do such weird things and then explain the reasons so that it just doesn't leave the reader wondering. I haven't read other books written about my own culture, but even so, I can rate this book as excellent.

Medical workers, students would benefit from reading`Spirit., April 27, 1998
If only the American doctors who treated Lia Lee's epilepsy had been able to read Anne Fadiman's "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," the scenario might have been different. If only Lia Lee's parents had capable interpreters or cultural brokers to escort them through teh maze of Western culture and medicine, Lia's sould might still be with her family. "the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures" is about cultural ambivalence and miscommunication. Fadiman's book details the wreckage when two cultures are fact-to-face, but can't see eye-to-eye. Lia Lee, the infant daughter of Hmong immigrants, arrives in the Merced, Calif., country hospital in an epileptic seizure which her parents attribute to a slammed door, a spirit catching Lia and soul loss. To the doctors, who know little about the Hmong, Lia's seizures are like short circuits in her brain which can be "Fixed" with powerful drugs. But the doctors are unaware that in Hmong culture, Lia's epilepsy, though considered potentially dangerous, makes Lia distinguished and indicates a possible future as a shaman. The Hmong, like many other small indigenous groups, are circular thinkers who see universal connections in all things. The Hmong, unlike Americans, don't split the mind and body. To the linear Cartesian doctors, medical health is not to be bartered with supplications to spirits and animal sacrifices. The book also touches on the colonial politics which have created Hmong and American personality traits. For centuries, the Chinese Communists and other Asian groups have systematically tried to persecute, manipulate and dominate the Hmong. Resistance has ensured Hmong survival. The Hmong challenge to authority frustrates American doctors who aren't used to having their suthority questioned. The Hmong firmly believe that Lia's medical treatments only make her more ill and refuse to give the medications. The doctors retaliate by removing Lia from her parents' home to foster care. In fact the Lees' fears are somewhat justified _ the prescriptions end up damaging Lia beyond repair. One doctor observes, "It felt as if there was this layer of Saran Wrap or something between us, and they were on one side of it and we were on the other side of it. And we were reaching and reaching and we could kind of get into their area, but we couldn't touch them. So we really couldn't accomplish what we were trying to do, which was to take care of Lia." Fadiman aptly notes the story raised questions about what it means to be a good parent and what it means to be a good doctor. Within their knowledge and capabilities, the Lee parents and the Merced doctors did everything the could to save Lia. Fadiman's book illi\ustrates the need for future cross-cultural studies and anthropological investigations which may prevent tragic encounters such as Lia's. Medical workers who treat non-Western patients should definitely read this book. High school students could also benefit from "The Spirit Catches You" because the text allows the reader to step briefly outside American culture and become Hmong.

Medical Communications Professional, May 10, 2002
This was one of the best books I've read in years. In writing this book, Fadiman beautifully portrays the story of a Hmong family who, like so many of their people, were suddenly transported from their rustic lives in mountains of Laos into a a confusedly modern society that rejected or disclaimed all that they had ever known or believe in. She also reveals some major flaws in our healthcare system, which is governed by rigid treatment protocols that were not designed adapt to individual needs or cross cultural barriers. Not that she characterizes the healthcare system or the professionals who cared for Lia as villians... Fadiman makes it clear that Lia's physicians worked feverishly and devotedly, often against a tide of tremendous resistance and lack of cooperation from her family, to control her disorder. Yet, as much as the practices and behavior of the Hmong hampered the doctor's efforts to manage Lia's disease, the refusal of Lia's treaters to acknowledge and address the motives and reasons for these behaviors undermined her treatment as well. As you read the book, it becomes obviously that Fadamin came to love the Hmong family and the culture she wrote about, and so made me slowly fall in love with them too. Descriptions of their behavior and practices early in the book first struck me as primative and somewhat repugnant, yet as layer after layer of the history, belief systems, and values of the Hmong were revealed, I came to appreciate them as beautiful, intricately complex, and deeply spiritual. From beginning to end, the story of Lia, her family, and the medical staff her cared for her is emotionally riviting... the final pages left me in tears and haunted me for days afterword. I also found myself missing Lia and her family as though I had known them personally... I was reluctant to leave them and their cultural ways behind.

Very good book, but some flaws, May 14, 2003
I think very highly of this book, and use it in one of my classes. But readers should be aware of two things:
1. The events described in this book took place in the 1980s, not long after Hmong refugees first came to the United States. This book describes a Hmong family at that point in time. Today many Hmong are college-educated professionals (some are doctors). Fadiman's book might - unintentionally - promote some stereotypes.
2. The historical background in chapter 2, especially the account of the Hmong in China, is nearly worthless. Fadiman perpetuates the errors in Keith Quincy's _Hmong: History of a People._ (The story of the "Hmong" king Sonom's defeat by China, for example, actually concerns the conquest of the Jinchuan people, who were not Hmong.)
Despite my reservations, Fadiman's book is on the whole a sensitive and compelling account of the clash of two cultures. But it should be read critically.

Hmong American reader here, March 20, 2004
People who are not familiar with Hmong Americans may read this book and assume that all/most Hmong Americans are like the Lee family and other Hmong families presented in the book. The events that took place with the Lee family occured when Hmong first arrived here in the late 70s/early 80s. These days, the majority of Hmong Americans are a lot more Americanized compared to the early 1980s. Although the assimilation has been slow compared to other first generation Americans, things have changed a lot since then. For example, many Hmong no longer practice the traditional Hmong religion and have converted to Christianity. The Lee family was a lot more traditional than most Hmong American families in the early 80s. I just wanted to clear this up.

Having said that, I enjoyed this book because it does the impossible. Fadiman is able to make the reader better understand the traditional Hmong culture, a culture that seems irrational and is opposite of western culture. It doesn't mean that you will agree with the Hmong culture but you will better understand it, including why the family did/did not do certain things to help their daughter who had epilepsy. I also believe that this book is important for those who work with the public because it promotes sensitivity towards other cultures. The doctors and the family had the very best intentions for the daughter who had epilepsy but the cultural barriers were just too much. ... Read more

Editorial Review

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Section I. Guide to Efficient Exam Preparation; Section I Supplement. Special Situations; Section II. General Principles; Chapter 1. Behavioral Sciences; Chapter 2. Biochemistry; Chapter 3. Embryology; Chapter 4. Microbiology and Immunology; Chapter 5. Pathology; Chapter 6. Pharmacology; Section III. High-Yield Organ Systems; Chapter 7. Cardiovascular; Chapter 8. Endocrine; Chapter 9. Gastrointestinal; Chapter 10. Hematology and Oncology; Chapter 11. Musculoskeletal and Connective Tissue; Chapter 12. Neurology and Psychiatry; Chapter 13. Renal; Chapter 14. Reproductive; Chapter 15. Respiratory; Chapter 16. Rapid Review; Chapter 17. High-Yield Images; Section IV: Top-Rated Review Resources ... Read more

Reviews

NO BRAINER for USMLE, December 28, 2010
Must have for the USMLE, great tool to study by as you progress through medical school. You will need a bit more if you are looking to do more than average, but this is a MUST for your foundation. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment

On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours-Taylor alternated between the euphoria of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized she was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was completely lost. It would take her eight years to fully recover.

For Taylor, her stroke was a blessing and a revelation. It taught her that by "stepping to the right" of our left brains, we can uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelined by "brain chatter." Reaching wide audiences through her talk at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and her appearance on Oprah's online Soul Series, Taylor provides a valuable recovery guide for those touched by brain injury and an inspiring testimony that inner peace is accessible to anyone. ... Read more

Reviews

Important
This is, indeed, a first-person description of stroke by a scientifically and dare I say it -- spiritually -- sophisticated person. The author describes a range of experiences that make sense given our knowledge of localization of function. I'm not sure that such a detailed and consistent report by a scientist is available anywhere else. As such, this story is unusual and important. Moreover the author reports how she turned her stroke into an opportunity for profound wisdom and insight. Amazing stuff! And this may save lives.

Personally, I don't share all the author's ideas about strict functional localization in the brain... but that is secondary and doesn't detract from my admiration of her remarkable contribution.

My enjoyment of this book was enhanced considerably by the material and links at the author's website. She has posted a number of video and audio presentations, radio shows, etc.

Stroke of Brilliance!
I first came across Jill Bolte Taylor, Phd when her speech at TED (an annual conference devoted to Technology, Entertainment, Design) went viral. In it, she describes how she witnessed herself having a stroke and the subsequent feeling of peace that enveloped her when her logical left brain shut down and her right brain became dominant. I became intrigued after watching the video and then read the book.

The book expounds on her experience while having the stroke and her subsequent recovery. It was amazing on many levels:
(1) She gives a 1st person narrative of her experience of the stroke and recovery but she doesn't portray it as something we should all pity and feel sorry for. Instead, she lays it out not unlike an explorer discovering new territory, full of suspense and wonder.

(2) She gives incredible tips on how to communicate with and care for stroke victims. For e.g., some people would yell at her after they saw she didn't understand what they were saying. However, she wasn't deaf. She could only process one word at a time. If those people would have spoken more slowly rather than loudly, she would have been able to understand them. This is something that would never have occurred to me if I hadn't read this book.

(3) She takes us on a tour of the 'mystical' right side of her brain which little is known about and whose capabilities in today's world seem to be dismissed. She says the right side of the brain is the gateway to enlightenment and nirvana. She shares tips on how to 'tend the garden of your mind' and to interrupt or stop those stories we all tell ourselves over and over again (usually about how we are deficient, not good enough, etc.). She calls them loops.

Dr. Taylor's tips about how we can all achieve nirvana by accessing the right side of the brain as a conscious process is worth the price of the book many times over. We all have a "loop of deep inner peace" wired into our neurological circuitry in our right brain and we can consciously choose to run this loop whenever we wish.

Closely related to this topic are books by Ariel & Shya Kane. They've written three outstanding books: Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: The 3 Simple Ideas That Will Instantaneously Transform Your Life, How to Create a Magical Relationship: The 3 Simple Ideas that Will Instantaneously Transform Your Love Life & Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment. The Kanes have been teaching about accessing the magic of the right-side of the brain for over 20 years and their book is chock full of tips, and stories on how to recognize those loops Dr. Taylor talks about and how to bypass them. If you're serious about getting enlightened, get Dr. Taylor's and the Kanes' books NOW!

Required Reading
My wife is a "massive" stroke victim. Her survival and recovery themselves were miracles. We are very fortunate. But one of the god-given gifts that has not returned is her speech. And while as a husband of 45 years when asked how she is doing often facetiously say that her loss of speech "is not all bad", I feel for her occasional frustration as she stumbles in her attempt to convey her feelings - fortunately, it is only occasional. We were warned it would be much, much worse.

But the bottom line, this book has restored her faith in the possibilities of even further recovery. It should be required reading for all stoke victims whose speech was affected. Likewise, for all caretakers of those victims. For just to see the light shine in her eye as she showed me many passages in the book that still gave her hope was well worth the price and time involved.

Fantastic!
I've been recommending My Stroke of Insight to nearly everyone I know. Jill provides a great moment-by-moment account of her stroke, a potentially devasting event many of my relatives have experienced. I deeply admire her determination to work through it. She also does one of the best jobs of describing brain function I've ever run across. I came away with a renewed sense of understanding, wonder and hopefulness about the capabilities of the human brain. Highly recommended!

Glimpse Inside the Mind of Another
Dr Taylor shows there are many kinds of knowledge, but maybe only one kind of awareness. The specialjourney that "Stroke of Insight" chronicles is surprising. It's a lesson how new learning, understanding and benefit can come of an experience that most would consider a severe blow. If you have the courage to face it and see it.

The ability to experience something on several levels, beyond the daily vision of most of us, and then to share it in such a clear and thoughful account is rare. In this book, Dr Taylor shows her courage doesn't end with facing pain, loss or mortality, but she also now breaks convention and presents her ideas and experience in full view, with their emotional and philosophical content included. Not only was she inspired by her own journey, but she shares the inspiration directly with the reader.

More than just an interesting read, this is one of the books that lets the reader peek inside the mind of another and, in doing so, to learn more about the self and the nature of our existence. Well worth your time.

Great book
How often do you get to hear a neuroscientist describe her own stroke?
This is an amazing story on three levels; physical, emotional, and spiritual. Dr. Jill's description of her eight year recovery is both uplifting and powerful. But the spiritual aspect is alone worth the price of admission. (I won't spoil it for you.)

Dr. Bolte-Taylor is not a writer of prose. Her style is that of someone experienced in writing scientific papers; factual, concise and parsimonious. But the content! That is what makes this a great book in my opinion.

A quick read but a powerful story.

Danny

My Stroke of Insight
An absolutely wonderful journey by a brain anatomist who suffered a stroke. Her resilience, her deep understanding of the condition and lessons to be learned by her and other health care professionals is outstanding. A must read for anyone whether faced with a health problem or not. Is a mind awakening experience!!! ... Read more

Editorial Review

In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks's splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject." ... Read more

Reviews

Truly incredible tales and a great read, November 18, 2004
It is utterly fascinating to know that, as a result of a neurological condition, a man can actually mistake his wife for a hat and not realize it. It is also fascinating to learn that a stroke can leave a person with the inability to see things on one side of the visual field--which is what happened to "Mrs. S." as recalled in the chapter, "Eyes Right!"--and yet not realize that anything is missing. In both cases there was nothing wrong with the patient's eyes; it was the brain's processing of the visual information that had gone haywire.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks, who has a wonderful way with words and a strong desire to understand and appreciate the human being that still exists despite the disorder or neurological damage, treats the reader to these and twenty-two other tales of the bizarre in this very special book. My favorite tale is Chapter 21, "Rebecca," in which Dr. Sacks shows that a person of defective intelligence--a "moron"--is still a person with a sense of beauty and with something to give to the world. Sacks generously (and brilliantly) shows how Rebecca taught him the limitations of a purely clinical approach to diagnosis and treatment. Although the child-like 19-year-old didn't have the intelligence to "find her way around the block" or "open a door with a key," Rebecca had an emotional understanding of life superior to many adults. She loved her grandmother deeply and when she died, Rebecca expressed her feelings to Sacks, "I'm crying for me, not for her...She's gone to her Long Home." She added, poetically, "I'm so cold. It's not outside, it's winter inside. Cold as death...She was a part of me. Part of me died with her" (p. 182). Rebecca goes on to show Dr. Sacks that they pay "far too much attention to the defects of...patients...and far too little to what...[is] intact or preserved" (p. 183). Rebecca was tired of the meaningless classes and workshops and odd jobs. "What I really love...is the theatre," she said. Sacks writes that the theatre "composed her...she became a complete person, poised, fluent, with style, in each role" (p. 185).

Another of my favorite stories is Chapter 23, "The Twins." These two guys, idiots savants, "undersized, with disturbing disproportions in head and hands...monotonous squeaky voices...a very high, degenerative myopia, requiring glasses so thick that their eyes seem distorted" (p. 196) had the very strange ability of being able to factor quickly in their heads large numbers and to recognize primes at a glance. They could also give you almost instantly the day of the week for any day in history. One day a box of matches fell on the floor and "<111,> they both cried simultaneously." And then one said "37" and then the other said "37" and then the first said "37" and stopped. There were indeed 111 matches on the floor (Sacks counted them) and three times the prime number 37 does indeed equal 111! (p. 199). Later he discovered them saying six-figure numbers to one another. One would give a number and the other would receive it "and appreciate...it richly." Sacks discovered that they were tossing out primes to one another just for the sheer joy of doing it.

Another of Sacks's discoveries about his patients is that "music, narrative and drama" are "of the greatest practical and theoretical importance" (p. 185). He demonstrates this again and again here and in his more recent book, An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales (1995), which is also an incredibly fascinating book. (See my review here at Amazon.com.) Many people with neurological disorders or deficiencies become whole when engaged in a process such as story, music or drama. The process seems to give them a structure to follow which, for the time being, overcomes their handicap. This is seen remarkably even in a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome who, while performing surgery, was without tics (as reported in the book mentioned above).

It's clear that one of Sacks's purposes in sharing his experience is to dispel the prejudice against people who are different because of their defects. One can see that respect for others regardless of their limitations is something Sacks incorporates in his practice and his life. It is one of the many virtues of this wonderful book, that in reading it, we too are moved to a greater respect for others, people who really are challenged in ways we "normal" people can only imagine.

Fascinating, October 3, 1998
The first thing I did after reading this book was to hop back onto Amazon.con and order "Awakenings" and "An Anthropolgist on Mars." This book was recommended by one of my philosophy professors in college about six years ago. Well, it took me six years to pick it up, and I don't regret the decision. As a complete layperson, my eyes were opened to what a complex piece of machinery the brain is. Sack's personal perspective on these patients disorders is what takes this interesting material and makes it fascinating reading. The only problem I had with this book was that I was disappointed to see most every chapter end. I wanted to know more about most every case. I only rank it 4 instead of 5 for that reason (It could have been more in-depth) and a couple of the cases were simply mildly interesting rather than mind-bending. It's almost imcrompehensible to perceive the world and one's self in the same manner as some of these unfortunate people. I was especially intrigued by one of the questions Sack's brings up concerning the case history discussed in the chapter "The Lost Mariner." A man can remember nothing for more than a few seconds. His entire life, all of his experiences are gone almost as soon as they are past. "He is a man without a past (or future), stuck in a constantly changing, meaningless moment," Sacks writes. Sacks then ponders the question that will stop your heart: "Does he have a soul?" If you have ever been bothered by the question of the spiritual nature of man, Sacks --who stops well short of reaching any theological conclusions -- will disturb you with this material. From that standpoint, he is brilliant at informing by simply forcing the reader to ask questions of his or her self...questions which Sack's himself admits even he has no clue as to the answers. This book could change your perspective on life, or simply entertain you as an interesting novelty. In any case, I very highly recommend it...can't wait to get into "Anthropologist" next.

A little old, but still interesting, July 25, 2002
I used to work on a neurology ward when I first started in health care, and the many sad stories that I was privy to during that time has encouraged me to keep up with some of the research in brain and mind science.

Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was first published in 1970 and has been reprinted several times with new material added. The book is an interesting collection of stories of individuals with neurological deficits that highlight and clarify how the normal brain works. The author approaches his study with a compassion for his patient's troubled existence, and where the patients are content with their lot, he prudently leaves well enough alone, something not all MD's are willing to do. He also appreciates what his patients have to teach him about life and even about the practice of medicine itself. His ability to learn from others considered "unfortunate" or mentally "defective" makes the book a very insightful work.

While the author's extensive clinical practice has allowed him to make some interesting statements about what parts of the brain are involved with different mental functions, what he fails to do in this book is to provide anything approaching testable ideas or actual research supporting his theories. The colorful stories are well worth reading as moral parables, but a better book on current mind and brain research might be Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain. One might begin with the Sacks book, which is easy to read, and proceed to the more extensive work by Ramachandran.

A Deeply Spiritual Book, May 20, 2001
I first encountered the essay "Rebecca" (one of the fine "clinical tales" in Sacks's book)in a Norton Anthology I used in a writing course. In this essay, Sacks describes his encounter with a young girl on a park bench outside the hospital. Later, he encounters her in a clinical setting as a patient, and has a different view of her. His clinical methodology uncovers her deficits; his challenge is to see past them to the whole spiritual being he saw sitting on a park bench transfixed with the beauty of spring. That he is able to do so refocuses his attitudes toward his other patients, for what he sees in Rebecca, he now "saw in them all."

For me what was most interesting about these fascinating stories is that the underlying question has to do less with cures for bizarre neurological diseases, than with the essential question of what makes us who we are, and what do we do when our entire concept of self is savaged and the world left unrecognizable?

For Sacks, at least part of the answer lies in art--the narrative in the synagogue that knits Rebecca's deficits and makes her whole (holy?); the music that enables some patients who are unable even to walk without difficulty, the ability to dance; the notes that enable stutterers to sing.

This is a wonderful book that does what wonderful books do--it makes the reader look again at what he only thought he saw before, and see it whole.

Hang on to your right hemisphere!, July 24, 2003
This is one of the most entertaining and thought provoking books I've read in a while. Oliver Sacks has done a marvelous job of illustrating just how mysterious and tenuous our perception of the world is by relating stories about patients who have suffered some kind of injury to the right hemisphere of their brains. Why the "right" hemisphere? As Sacks explains, the left hemisphere has a fairly comprehensible role; it seems to follow rules. When it does not function appropriately, the consequences are reasonably predictable. "Indeed, the entire history of neurology and neuropsychology can be seen as a history of the investigation of the left hemisphere."

In contrast, the right hemisphere has been something of an enigma, and is consequently called the 'minor' hemisphere. But, "it is the right hemisphere which controls the crucial powers of recognizing reality which every living creature must have in order to survive." For example, the right hemisphere is responsible for "proprioception", which allows us to feel our bodies as "proper to us"; that they belong to us. This is so basic that it is difficult to even imagine what it would be like to have impaired proprioception. Sacks is keenly aware of this challenge; in a sense, the entire book is an attempt to give us a glimpse into such an incomprehensible world.

Sacks quotes Wittgenstein:, "The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes.)" Those things that are most basic, most obvious, have a deeply mysterious foundation in the brain. One can begin to appreciate this when one considers those unfortunate individuals who have lost some of these basic perceptions due to injury or illness. As Sacks points out in the introduction, "It is not only difficult, it is impossible, for patients with certain right-hemisphere syndromes to know their own problems... And it is singularly difficult, even for the most sensitive observer, to picture the inner state, the 'situation', of such patients, for this is almost unimaginably remote from anything he himself has ever known."

Sacks presents detailed and compassionate accounts of numerous patients whose worlds are indeed unimaginably remote from our own. He tells us of patients who have difficulty distinguishing between people and inanimate objects, those who have perfect "vision" yet cannot discern the purpose of an object without tactile feedback, those who fail to recognize their own limbs as belonging to them, and those who have lost fundamental spatial concepts, such as the distinction between left and right. One of the most intriguing cases that Sacks presents is that of a woman who had "totally lost the idea of 'left', both with regard to the world and her own body," a condition known as hemi-inattention. To this woman, everything in her left visual field simply ceased to exist, in analogy to the way each of us fills the blind spots in our visual field. This unfortunate woman would eat half her lunch (that on the right side of her tray) and was incapable of turning to the left (since left did not exist) to discover what remained. In time, she learned to turn herself around, always to the right, until she found the rest of her lunch.

This book is not only engrossing, it is challenging; it forces one to acknowledge that what we take as so plainly obvious about the world is intimately tied to basic brain function. Oliver Sacks demonstrates beautifully that the brain is still deeply mysterious, particularly in how it creates our sense of reality. There are profound implications here for those interested in psychology and philosophy. It's a great read.

Excellent book of case studies on the diseases of the mind, April 22, 2004
This is a layman's journey into the case studies of nureological problems. The book is written in a clear style that makes each case a story rather than a statistic. If you've ever wondered about diseases of the mind, this is the book for you.

It's not really a good book to read before bed as some of these people have problems that could make one want to stay up and talk about it with someone else.

A Neurologist with Great Humanity., February 8, 2004
Considering my stereotyped image of a neurologist, i.e., having that strict 'scientific' view of the human being (the mind/brain having solely mechanical processes, devoid of 'soul'; a noticeable unawareness or avoidance of a human's actual 'being', that purely 'clinical' approach to the patient as mere 'subject') was exploded in a thousand pieces after reading this special book. Sacks' general humanity in general and particularly for his patients glimmered bright from every page. As a doctor, researcher and therapist in this field, he communicates quite freely and clearly as to his personal views on his profession and where he would like it to go:

"The patient's essential being is very relevant in the higher reaches of neurology, and in psychology; for here the patient's personhood is essentially involved, and the study of disease and the identity cannot be disjoined. Such disorders, and their depiction and study, indeed entail a new discipline, which we may call the 'neurology of identity', for it deals with the neural foundations of the self, the age-old problem of mind and brain.' (X)

This book is a collection of twenty-four cases, clinical tales about people who, in some cases, have been struck with terrible brain related illnesses during the prime of their lives. The physical, emotional and very foundations of how they function and view the world, has been drastically altered. In the case of 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat', Dr. P., a musician of distinction, teacher and accomplished painter, developed a type of visual agnosia or prosopagnosia, where he could not recognize faces and came to see things, people and objects as something else. His entire perceptions of the world had totally changed. One aspect of this particular story that was interesting was Dr. P's paintings, which Sacks observed hanging on the wall of his home. In the beginning the paintings depicted a 'realist' style, almost mirror representations; as the years went by, each painting became more impressionistic, ending in the most recent work being entirely abstract. Sacks made a comment about this fact to the Dr.'s wife, who believed that his artistic style simply matured over the years. However Sacks saw the paintings as representing the progressive nature of the man's condition. I found this case to be at once bizarre, interesting and sad.

Most if not all of the cases in this book are bizarre, interesting and sad, but Dr. Sacks conveys a deep humanity, a scientific concern and a real hope that the profession will find more effective ways in dealing with the brain. He believes the profession should re-think their approaches; perhaps ask different questions, however, most importantly, not forget that, as physicians, they're not dealing with just 'clinical subjects', but human beings with identity. In other words, to truly understand the brain/ mind relation, the essential being, science and the humanities must join forces. One can see from this wonderful book, that Oliver Sacks has already attempted to do just this, with varying degrees of success.

This is a book that drastically changed my views on a lot of things, not least the utter vastness of the mind, and how easily we can lose what we take for granted everyday.

Exists on 2 levels, one better than the other, June 8, 2000
This book could be read on two levels: in a clinical sense, with its million-dollar scientific terms and long winded, detailed description of methods and diagnoses; and in an anecdotal sense, as stories about quirky, remarkable characters. After reading a bit, I preferred to continue reading with the latter approach in mind, and was distracted by the clinical stuff. I felt it really took away from the amazing stories therein. Additionally, Sacks was kind of self-aggrandizing, and didn't so much place his patients as the book's center as he did himself, and his assessment of their eccentricities.

A touchstone book, November 14, 2001
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" suggests a theatrical image from Ionesco, or perhaps a brightly illustrated volume shelved next to "If You Give a Moose a Muffin." And yet this book is far from absurdity or fantasy: It describes actual neurological dysfunctions, and the title captures the human dimension of these afflictions -- personal, puzzling, embarrassing, disabling, alienating and, yes, even funny. With his combination of clinical expertise, compassionate insight and comfortable prose, Dr. Oliver Sacks ("Awakenings" and "An Anthropologist on Mars") is the perfect guide to this unusual investigation. On one level his case studies are fascinating glimpses of the complex -- and fragile -- circuitry that must be integrated to produce "normal" brain function, and they illustrate how isolated deficits can have life-transforming impact. But Sacks is more interested in people than in diagnoses, and he introduces us to vivid personalities whose responses and adaptations are often inventive and unpredictable, and whose individual circumstances often evade conventional wisdom. There is the title character, who learns to sing himself through his day after he loses the capability to connect visual imagery with interpretive categories. Sacks sympathetically describes the savant brothers who are perfectly content communicating privately through prime numbers, but who are deprived of joy when therapeutic protocol pushes them into "normal" life. And then there's the man with Tourette's Syndrome for whom the physical and verbal tics are either a burden or a blessing, depending on the day of the week. Every once in awhile a book comes along that becomes a touchstone, a standard source of reference and perspective in daily life, a dependable source of insight and inspiration. "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" may become that for you, as it has for me.

A must read for families facing Alzheimer's Disease, February 8, 2000
My Husband, Tom's, neurologist recommended that I read this book as a means of helping me understand what was happening to Tom's brain. Tom died of Alzheimer's in 1995. This book is not about Alzheimer's but in many ways it gave me more insight than anything else I read. I reasoned that if the brain can manifest the extremes in behaviors and misinterpretations exhibited in the case studies Dr. Sacks highlights then perhaps a brain deteriorating randomly, as it does in Alzheimer's, can also mainifest similar behaviors and misinterpretations. It helped me immesnsely in figuring out what was behind his behaviors and his losses and I dared to allow myself to enter his world and see that world through his eyes. I detail some of these moments of insight in my book, "He Used to be Somebody, A Journey Into Alzheimer's Through the Eyes of a Caregiver," and how this insight translated in his care. (Tom died in our home after a 14 year battle with this disease. If he knew nothing else he knew his was loved. We should all be so lucky.) Dr. Sacks never loses sight of the human being facing the challenges he writes so eloquently of. He has that quality which allows him to see past the symptoms and into the soul of the person. The lesson is that the disease does not define the person. Alzheimer's is no exception. I highly recommend this reading for families and professionals working with this Alzheimer's and other dementia. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Revised and Expanded

With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls “musical misalignments.” Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but music.

Illuminating, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable, Musicophilia is Oliver Sacks' latest masterpiece. ... Read more

Reviews

Extraordinary!, October 26, 2007
Musicophilia is an absolutely phenomenal book, and will be of interest to anyone fascinated by music, mysteries of the mind, and the human condition. Sacks covers 29 different topics, ranging from synesthesia, to musical hallucinations, to savants, and beyond. In each chapter, he introduces the topic through cases (his own and famous ones in the literature--neurological and classic fictional literature, that is!), always maintaining a deep engagement with the humanity of the subjects: what is it like for these individuals? how do they describe their talent or illness or condition? Sacks also speculates on the possible neurological bases for these fascinating scenarios. This is a real page-turner, beautifully and clearly written, and it will give readers a new respect for the special place of music in our psychology, as well as a deeper understanding of the range of what it is to be human. 20 stars!

Music and Science were never so interesting, November 5, 2007
Dr. Oliver Sacks is a British neurologist with a love of music and science. This book blends music and science together like no book I've ever read. There are some amazing stories here. I love the story of surgeon Tony Cicoria who developed a passion for listening and playing music after he was struck by lightning. The story of British conductor Clive Wearing is amazing too. He developed amnesia after his brain became inflammed. He has the the memory and ability to conduct and sing music, but he can't remember anything else. I also loved the story the research chemist named Salimah. Her shy personality was changed after she suffered a seizure. She suddenly had the desire to listen to music all the time. I also touched by the story of Woody Geist. He suffers from Alzheimers disease, but he still performs in an a cappella singing group. Leon Fleisher is a classical piano player who performed with one hand for many years because of a condition called dystonia which affected his right hand. I learned about a genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome in this book. Kids with Williams Syndrome have difficulty paying attention, but they often possess a love for music. I was entertained and informed by this book so much.

Music and its role in our lives, October 24, 2007
It is refreshing to see how a specialist still retains the ability to be marveled by the cases he sees in his office. Too often scientists get so blas� over their practice that they miss the finer human aspects of every case. Sacks leads the reader gently by hand, even while using neurological jargon, into amazing stories of patients who live through situation we would not have imagined. And they all involve music and how humans experience it.

I believe this book is a must for musicians, who will probably acquire new understandings regarding the dimensions of their music in relation to their own brains.

Needs editing, November 25, 2008
My wife thoughtfully purchased this book for me. I had read about it and was very excited to dive right in. Unfortunately I ended up really having to convince myself to finish it, as it became redundant fairly quickly. Sacks presents (too) many case studies regarding music and the brain, but the presentation feels random and somewhat unfocused. Had his editor suggested grouping the studies by themes or urged Sacks to provide more neurological background information it perhaps would have better kept my attention. It felt as if the reader had to do a lot of work to pull together some of the concepts.

As for the perceived redundancy, I kept waiting for the conclusion or wrap-up that would provide the overarching theme to all the seemingly disconnected patient stories, but to no avail. It almost felt as if the stories were starting to repeat themselves but with different patient names. The length too felt far too long, almost as if everything presented in the first half were just recycled for the second. Additionally, the writing style is very informal and easy to digest, which is not necessarily a positive. The book begins to feel as if the author were afraid to intelligently, academically, and thoroughly dissect the subject matter for fear of alienating too many readers. The result is a glossy feeling, like you're reading the U.S.A. Today version of something that could have really offered some insightful perspectives.

Promising topic, but presented without much organization, background information, or conclusion. I'm surprised that an editor would allow such breadth to be published without any true depth.

Outstanding!, November 15, 2007
In his latest book, Oliver Sacks continues to tell us stories that draw us in, engaging our minds and emotions. In each chapter he introduces different people, some sorely affected by neurological disease, who have strange and profound relationships with music. This is not a dry scientific treatise. Sacks describes these people in a highly personal way, so that we see and feel the human aspect of science. At the same time he teaches us about the science of the brain, and the wonderful ways that music and the mind are intertwined. The subject is inherently fascinating, and the author does not disappoint. Drawing upon case histories from his own practice, and some from literature, he delves into the mysteries of the human brain, how it produces music, and how it is profoundly affected by it.

Sacks writes in a clear and straightforward manner. It is wonderful to find medical writing that is so accessible. There is some material here from his prior books, but it does not detract from this work. This is a highly engaging and informative book. I took great pleasure in reading it. If you are interested in music or science, you will enjoy this new offering from Oliver Sacks.

Wired for Music, Humanness and the Musical Language, December 15, 2007
Dr. Sacks has written about brains for decades now. He's also a decent, enthusiastic amateur musician. In Musicophilia, the good Dr. brings the brain and music together to cover what can go wrong and also oh so right when music and the brain get together.

Dr. Sacks first covers the various problems when the mind either fails to process music "normally" or attaches a variety of extra sensory reactions to music. His experience is both anecdotal and academic as he relies both on his own experiences as a neurophysiologist who has known and treated musical illnesses, and also his training as a networked professional involved in the studies of varous types of amusia and hypermusicality. I was also very interested in the positive corrolation between the higher occurrences of absolute pitch in those populations which speak tonal languages (like Mandarin).

Of special interest to me were the closing chapters on various aspects of music therapy in geriatric patients, autistics, those who suffer various types of dementia, and the very interesting introduction (for me) to those people at the opposite end from the autistics, those who have Williams' syndrome.

Some criticize the book for offering more questions than answers, but even the questions offer patterns from which the thoughtful reader can see a certain wondrous calculus emerge, a uniquely human and late-appearing link between what it means to think and how music is inextricably linked to our humanness.

Musical Intuitions Grounded in Scientific Reasoning, November 26, 2007
As a person with a neurological disability who has been helped by music, I can relate to this book personally and thouogh yes, I found it entertaining (and incredibly informative), I find it a shame when people
think of Oliver Sack's books as amusing case studies as that is not his intent and his books, "Musicophillia" included are much richer than that in thought and retrospect. Understanding the intricate working of the brain is essential for all people and as well, many of the conditions detailed in this book such as Parkinson's, stroke, Alzheimer's can often be acquired in later life so these are experiences that may and often do happen to people later on in life to people they know or who are caregivers to (as is detailed). Most importantly, though music is an essential part of human life (would this site exist without it?) and of the social experience and the perception of sound and the world outside can be more easily interpreted through a fully understanding of people's interpretation of music. These are more than interesting stories about odd people whose brain functions differently. They are (in a figurative sense)portals into the thinking of everyone with or without neurological impairments. When you hear a song and say "that brings back memories" or find a song sticking in your head or don't know why or experience a feeling of sadness without knowing why when hearing music or turn on music(or more particulary a certain song) to relax, you may be experiencing in a more real world sense what the people described in this book are experiencing and it may bring a fully understanding of the phenomenon. And most importantly, its solid, intelligent, scientifically accurate but accessible writing by a top professional and expert in the field in a way that an average reader can comprehend.

Discovering the powers of the brain, November 6, 2007
This is a wonderful book on many levels. It is extremely well written. It is fully of compelling stories. And it helps us to look inside our remarkable instrument, the brain. If you have ever whistled a tune you might have wondered what others hear when they listen to music. Some hear nothing but noise. Some hear entire symphonies. Some hear music that won't stop. And others hear a stream of original music. Some can hear melodies but not rhythm. And some can hear rhythm but not melodies. I always thought it was remarkable that I could compose and hear complete symphonies in my dreams but not when I was awake. Well, I am not alone. You too have likely experienced some intriguing musical experience. You might find some insight into that experience in this remarkable book.

Sacks Writes Another Great Book -- But ..., January 25, 2008
... I was a little disappointed. 4.5 stars

I enjoy every book by Dr. Sacks. He's always insightful, empathetic, and a brilliant storyteller. All the things you like about Dr. Sacks' writing you will find in full in this book. I really like this book. Once again, Dr. Sacks makes the stories of his patients come alive and demonstrate brilliantly the relationship between our mental states and abilities and the physiological functioning of the brain. Bravo. If you like Sacks, you will like this book (very much I would say.)

But ... my but: With a title like Musicophilia ("the love of music") I was expecting much more about WHY we humans ENJOY music so much. Why are we the musical ape? This is only touched on tangentially in this book. I felt a bit of false advertising in the title. I've read Anthony Storr's book "Music and the Mind" and "Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination" by Robert Jourdain (both are good.) With Dr. Sacks' title (and maybe it was chosen by his publisher, this often happens) I expected something more in that vein: the enjoyment of music. (And so, I still await further explorations ...)

All in all a great book. Enjoy.

Very interesting, November 21, 2007
This book is very interesting to me, as a music teacher. I teach over 500 students twice a week and sometimes their abilities and inabilities amaze me. I do ear training for 10 and 11 year-olds and the range of ability to hear and order pitches is all over the map. Sometimes it can be improved upon (usually) and occasionally I can't get them to ever actually hear and identify pitch. While this book does not suggest fixes, I am better able to understand and sympathize with my students. I have a few exceptionally gifted students also. As I am NOT one of them, it is fun to imagine how they conceive music. Great book - thanks. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Safety 1st Theinformation nurses need.when, where, and how they need it!Today's most comprehensive nursing drugguide emphasizes safety 1st!Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses,Twelfth Edition always puts safety first.emphasizing the information nurses need to know toadminister medications competently and safely.across the lifespan. Well-organizedmonographs for hundreds of generic and thousands of trade name drugs reflectthe latest FDA approvals and changes.The TWELFTH EDITION at a glance.NEWand UPDATED CONTENTNEW! Free, 1-year subscription to Drug Guide Online (DrugGuide.com) featuring over 1,500 complete drug monographs, the latest FDA approvals, and much more.NEW& UNIQUE! Pharmacogenomic content.UPDATED! Thoroughly reviewed, revised, and updatedmonographs.UPDATED!Evidence-based content relatedto pharmacotherapeutics.UPDATED!Full-color insert, includingphotographs of "Tall Man," high alert, and commonly seen drugs.NEW! Additionalheadings for special populations.EXPANDED!Herbal content. UPDATED!Cost information for 200 top drugs.UPDATED!Nursing diagnoses.UPDATED!FREE mobile download of 100 complete drug monographs. NEWand ENHANCED CLINICAL and LEARNING TOOLSNEW! Interactive Flash cards. UPDATED! Case Studies. NEW! Audio podcasts. NEW! Calculator for Body Mass Index (BMI). NEWand ENHANCED TEACHING RESOURCESNEW! Electronic Test Bank.UPDATED! PowerPoint presentations.UPDATED! Case Studies.UPDATED! Classroom Activities.SAFETY1ST WITH ALL OF THE STRENGTHS THAT HAVE MADE IT THE DRUG GUIDE OF CHOICE YEARAFTER YEAR!nursing practiceAll 5 steps ofthe nursing process.The Joint Commission's guidelines on pain management.Vulnerable patientpopulations across the lifespan in each monograph.Extensive coverageof IV administration, in boththe Pharmacology and Nursing Implications sections,highlighted by special subheads, with specific information on.dilution, concentration, and rateclinical precautionsdirect IV administrationintermittent or continuous infusionslifespan considerationsIV compatibilities and incompatibilities patientsafety and preventingmedication errorsMore high-alert coverage and patient safety information than any other drug guide.Life-threatening side effects most frequently encountered problems do not confuse with, do not crush, break, or chew medicationshow to avoid common errors, where appropriate.Drug-drug, drug-naturalproducts, and drug-food interactions.How to administer medication safely by all routes, withinformation on preparation and mixture of oral medsmethods for parenteral administration, toxicity and signs ofoverdosedosing considerations for patients with renal or hepaticimpairmentmuch more!Thorough Patient and Family Teaching Guidelines. Well-structured and readableOrganized by generic drugname, with an index thatincludes generic and trade names, classifications, combination drugs, and herbals.An engaging, easy-to-readstyle.Safety1st with Unique clinical and learing tools!ResourceKit CD-ROM (Mac & PC Compatible) This is not your ordinary drug guide CD-ROM! Completely revisedand updated, Davis's Drug Guide, Twelfth Edition CD-ROM is a complete Resource Kit with tools students andclinicians need to administer medications safety and competently.UPDATED & UNIQUE! Preventing Medication Errors Tutorial provides.a medication safety reviewa self test with "real-life" scenariosphysician ordersrationales for correct and incorrect answers UPDATED & UNIQUE!Psychotropic Drugs Tutorial depicts the safe administration of psychotropic medication and includesmonograph content for select psychotropic drugs and a multiple-choiceself-test.UPDATED! Wound CareTutorial provides a photographic overview of the different types ofwounds and wound care products as well as a self-test, with answers andrationales.UPDATED!FREE, mobile download of 100 complete drug monographs. UPDATED!Interactive Case Studies offer brief"real-life" scenarios followed by a series of questions. Results can be printedor e-mailed.UPDATED! DrugSearch Program offers easy access to nearly 700 drug monographs with audiopronunciations. (Copy, paste, and print each one.)NEW! Calculator forBody Mass Index (BMI) as well as calculators for metric conversions, IV drip rates, dosage/kg calculations, and Fahrenheit/Celsius.NEW! Audio Library for nearly 1,000 drug names from the Davis'sDrug Guide for Nurses database.Wound Care ClinicalSheet, pocket sized and printable, offers a quick review of pressure ulcer prevention strategies.wound assessmentpressure ulcer stages and treatmentwound care productsmore! ... Read more

Reviews

Keep this with you while administering meds to clients., December 23, 2003
I teach nursing, and this DAVIS Drug Guide for Nurses is a must-have for all my students as they learn how to professionally administer medications to their clients.
All nurses should have a convenient system to use when the occasion arises that a nurse gives a medication that they are unfamilair with...I found that this DAVIS Guide is a quick and easy way to investigate the medication, it's indications, contraindications, nursing considerations and idiosyncrasies. Adverse reactions and normal dosing ranges are included for all medications .....
There is also caution advised to prevent medication errors....near misses are always preferred over real errors any day. How the heart skips a beat whenever that happens!
Nurses NEVER intend to make errors, and this book gives a cautionary tale in the beginning - to help professionals understand the grave seriousness of it all.
It's never too late to buy an informative drug guide, and here I recommend this book to ALL --- professional or not.
It's cruicial that all people who give medications or take them understand the actions of the medications comprehensively.
The more one knows the more choices they posses.
Before you pass the meds,
pass the DAVIS Drug Guide!

Best Drug Guide For Nurses, July 30, 2002
My pharmacology class required Davis's Drug Guide For Nurses. Being a cynic, I checked out all the other guides available at the time. Davis's is the BEST drug guide for students, new grads and long-time nurses. Nursing dx are included with every drug listed. Quick and simple to use. Cross-referenced by brand and generic names. OTC medications get the same treatment as prescription medications. Davis's also has listings for the most used herbals and excellent content to help guide the nurse in herbal-drug interactions. The best deal out there, I am buying my third copy of this excellent resource.

Most useful Nursing Drug Book Available, March 8, 2000
I have found this to be the most useful drug book on the market. The doctors at the hospital prefer to use my Davis' over the PDR. It's a quicker to find the pertinant info on any type of dosage for every type of patient.

Superb drug guide for nurses, December 19, 2005
You can't go wrong with this fantastic drug guide! It is listed under generic names but if you don't know the generic name you can look up in the index at the back of the book for the trade name. I had a nurse/lawyer professor for my first year care plans and she wanted it all. This book delivered it ALL: classification, pregnancy catagory, indications, mechanism of action, contraindications and precautions, adverse reactions and side effects, interactions, route and dosage, availability, nursing implications and even potential nursing diagnoses! Also implementation, patient/family teaching and evaluation. Wow! I've been very impressed. It came through for me so I didn't have to go out and buy another drug book which is saying something! Davis's Drug Guide has even more in the back of the book with many appendixes including: recent drug approvals, additional drugs, combination drugs and opthalmic meds all that include class, indications, adverse reactions and side effects, route and dosage and contraindications and warnings. Appendix E is about natural/herbal products which is as thorough as the drugs that make up the main part of this book. There are pictures of the intramuscular drug sites, formulas helpful for calculating doses, routine pediatric and adult immunizations, recommendations for the safe handling of hazardous drugs, schedules of controlled substances, food sources for specific nutrients (ie foods rich in K, Na, Ca, Fe, vit K, vit D, low Na, foods that acidify urine as well as foods that alkalizine urine), and insulin and insulin therapy. Also throughout the book there is plenty of red lettering amidst the black for high alert warnings where drug overdoses have occurred in the past. The organized, easily found references in this guide could save your client's lives. Just because a doctor orders it doesn't mean it is ok to give, as a nurse we have to look it up and know the safe dose and contraindications and more and this book has it all! Highly recommended! Good luck all future nurses!
Soar!

An Excellent Reference for Paramedics, July 31, 1999
I am an Instructor of initial Paramedic programs for East Carolina University in Greenville North Carolina. This is the best reference that I have found. This text contains information not found in many similar references such as the half life of a drug and duration of onset. This information is of particular interest to the Paramedic. The individual drugs are easy to locate and the language is precise and free of the useless clutter found in many drug references.

Registered Nurse, September 7, 2002
I work in ICU/CCU, and at times the ED. I especially like the syringe compability and IV compability guides. I have not found this information in other drug books for nurses. In an emergent situation, it is great to have one text which contains the information you NEED! Nurses in my unit will grab this book for reference (others are available), and so will the doctors. A Nurse Practioner referred this book to me, and I cannot thank her enough. I highly recommend Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses to all nurses, and student nurses. Paperback, 2002 edition review.

Great Drug Guide!, November 19, 2003
I am a 3rd semester nursing student and I absolutely love this drug guide. I have used others before, but this one is the best. It has the best IV drug administration info. It has side effects listed as the most life threatening in bold, and the most frequent in underlines. That makes it easy to wade through all of the possible side effects to the most likely and the most threatening that you may need to know for patient care and, of course, when getting quized by clinical instructors :) When my friends can't find a drug or a detail about administration they always ask for my book or my PDA (i have this version on my PDA also). This is the best drug book I have seen; it also has nursing diagnoses and great patient teaching instructions.

Davis's Drug guide report from the field, March 30, 2000
Im currently a RN student and many of the students in my class including myself use this book. I've actually used 3 different brands but this book stands above all. It lets the reader know important points about the drugs and does not confuse as some of the other books have done w/elaborate terminology. Davis keeps it simple and its well designed. Software isn't bad as well but I find myself using the book more often when I look up the drugs.

Not properly formatted for Kindle, July 29, 2009
The Kindle edition is incorrectly formatted and you cannot find the individual drug monographs via the Table of Contents. If you type in the generic name, you can get over a hundred items because all the cross references come up on the search.

A Great Reference for non- Nurses, September 19, 2000
As a home health care therapist, I have been searching for a drug reference book that was easy to use and provided good information I could share with my patients. After reviewing several options, Davis' book meet my needs perfectly. I have given it to my staff for comment and it was so well received that today I am ordering 10 copies for our department. ... Read more

Editorial Review

When Thomas Edison began wiring New York City with a direct current electricity distribution system in the 1880s, he gave humankind the magic of electric light, heat, and power; in the process, though, he inadvertently opened a Pandora's Box of unimaginable illness and death.

Dirty Electricity tells the story of Dr. Samuel Milham, the scientist who first alerted the world about the frightening link between occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields and human disease. Milham takes readers through his early years and education, following the twisting path that led to his discovery that most of the twentieth century diseases of civilization, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and suicide, are caused by electromagnetic field exposure.

Dr. Milham warns that because of the recent proliferation of radio frequency radiation from cell phones and towers, terrestrial antennas, Wi-Fi and Wi-max systems, broadband internet over power lines, and personal electronic equipment, we may be facing a looming epidemic of morbidity and mortality. In Dirty Electricity, he reveals the steps we must take, personally and as a society, to coexist with this marvelous but dangerous technology. ... Read more

Reviews

Brilliant and imperative reading for everyone!
"Dirty Electricity" is a slim but power-packed book by one of the country's most noted epidemiologists of the last 50 years, Samuel Milham, MD, PhD. The book explores and exposes the dangers posed by the continual and increasing "electrification" of the society since the 1930s and 1940s, and its direct association with the surge of modern diseases of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: including cancers, heart disease and diabetes.

The approach of the book is a successful blend of biographical anecdotes and research findings that only a scientist of Milham's standing-- with over one hundred published papers concentrating on the adverse impacts of manmade electromagnetic radiation exposure on both workers and the general public-- could have written. The style is straightforward, informative and deceptively easy to read. And this is real tribute to the scientist/author successfully tackling a very important and extremely relevant subject that is too often made unclear or over scientifically detailed for the average reader.

As a result, the book lends itself as not only an excellent introductory primer for members of the general public starved for accurate information on this most pressing environmental issue of the day-- that directly relates to the ongoing health problems surrounding the continual saturation of power lines, cell phones, computers and compact fluorescent lights among the population-- but also serves an excellent read for those already grounded in the subject and who are looking to fill in details to be even better informed.

Included among the research highlighted in the book is a brilliant study revealing the development of childhood leukemia in the society, which Milham was able to show as being associated with the increased "electrification" of residences in the United States, beginning around the 1930s and 1940s.

While showcased is a recent study of multiple cancers among a teacher population in a California middle school that Milham was able to link to abnormal electric voltages-- "dirty electricity"-- being emitted in the wall wiring of the school, and serves as a sobering and chilling warning of similar incidences almost certainly being played out and being unreported across the rest of the country.

This highly recommended book should be read by anyone within the U.S., or outside it, who is interested in preserving and protecting his or her health, because it relates to the current health issues surrounding the ever increasing silent and adverse impacts of manmade electromagnetic radiation sources that are, and will continue to be, at the heart of the this and other nations' health debates from this point forward.

G. Friedman

Insightful, informative and entertaining!
Dr. Sam Milham shares his experiences about his life and the work he did as an epidemiologist and medical doctor. He describes how, when, and why he did his research and in the end the reader learns about electromagnetic fields, dirty electricity and the other forms of electrosmog to which we are increasingly exposed. Dr. Milham shows how the increase in childhood leukemia and the diseases of the post-industrial age (depression, suicide, heart disease, diabetes and cancers) are associated with electrification. While we are unlikely to give up using electricity and our wireless toys, we can certainly learn to use them more safely. By reading this book you will learn how to protect your health and the health of those you care about. Although this topic can be quite technical, Dr. Milham's style is easy to read and to understand. His research papers are provocative and he has been proven to be correct time and again. Sam Milham should receive a Nobel Prize for his research and his discoveries as he was among the first to document the biological and health effects of electromagnetic pollution. This book is a must read!

Dr. Magda Havas, Trent University, Canada

It's about time!!
I'm so happy that Dr. Milham has written this book! People have no idea what EM Fields cause. It's about time that the world gets an idea what's happening.

The Most Important Book of the Twenty-First Century
Dr. Milham has published seminal papers over the 40 some years of his career as an occupational epidemiologist. He has received international recognition for his work, winning the highly prestigious Ramazinni prize for his pioneering work on the risk of cancer from occupational exposures to electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

But this book surpasses all of his previous work. It certainly is, in my view, the most important book yet published in our new century. He convincingly shows that a set of diseases, the "diseases of civilization" (cancer, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular, asthma, type 2 diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis and depression) is the result of the exposure to EMFs, though not necessarily the only cause.

The book begins with a wonderful rendition of how as a medical doctor he became entranced with epidemiology. He give a brief overview of his experiences in medical school and his success as a young doctor, particularly as his mentor Gilbert Beebe taught him to do, "listening to patients, if properly questioned, would always tell the doctor the diagnosis."

He tells story after story of how he was able to detect a health problem that no one else had seen. For example, when his infant daughter became quite ill. He diagnosed her with a strep infection (as any doctor would have likely done) but he went beyond the obvious. He checked with his neighbors and discovered that the community was in the middles of a milk-borne strep infection, which in his words was a "clear example of a public health failure." It was this, and many other similar examples, that brought him to epidemiology.

He shows that the same skills that he brought to his medical practice when he became an epidemiologist MD. That is, as an epidemiologist, as he had been as a practicing doctor, he looked beyond the obvious. It is the continuous application of this skill that resulted in his wining of the Ramazzini prize. This book is about how he came to the understanding that dirty electricity is a hazard, yet a hazard, if recognized by society that can easily with little to no expense be mitigated such that we can continue to live with the benefits of electricity and substantially eliminate the diseases of civilization.

Everyone concerned about health issues beyond contagious diseases should read this short and highly readable book, then each reader should pass on to their friends, what an important book Dirty Electricity is.

Great, eye opening book
My father first read this book and liked it so much, he went out and bought 20+ copies, handing them out to everyone he knew and cared about, including me. I wish there were more people in the world like Samuel Milham (the book's author). He presents a very valid case and good research on how dirty electricity is a silent killer, and yet a problem that could be so easily solved. My wife, who is a school teacher in California, has long noticed that cancer rates among school teachers are much higher than average. This book finally explains why. It also gives very practical advice as to how to prevent or reduce exposure to dirty electricity. The book is well written and a quick read-- I highly recommend it. ... Read more