History of knowledge of the brain

HBL members may be interested in The Tale of Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery by Sam Kean.   It was published in 2014, but I am just now discovering it.  It is a history of man’s knowledge of the human brain.  It is written for laymen, and it’s a fun read. 

The book describes what has been learned about the brain from historical events. For example, it describes the case of King Henri II of France whose brain, in 1559,  was injured when a jousting pole splintered during a joust, hitting the King between the eyes then piercing his right eye.  It describes what was learned during the autopsy of Charles Guiteau, who assassinated President Garfield, and the partial brain examination of Leon Czolgosz, who assassinated President McKinley.  It tells the story of the creation of LSD and its impact on the brain, and the remarkable story of James Holman who traveled alone around the world many times (approximately 250,000 miles) in the 1800s—while blind.  And that’s just the first few chapters; I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

This is from the Introduction:

Above all, I wrote The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons to answer a question . . . where does the brain stop and the mind start? . . . How a conscious mind emerges from a physical brain is still the central paradox of neuroscience. But we have some amazing leads now . . . .