Medicine Mind And The Double Brain

The description for this book, Medicine, Mind, and the Double Brain: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought, will be forthcoming.

How did epidemics, zoos, German exiles, methamphetamine, disgruntled technicians, modern bureaucracy, museums, and whipping cream shape the emergence of modern neuroscience?

In the tradition of Andrew Weil's bestseller Spontaneous Healing, this is a physician's breakthrough medical program for the brain designed to diminish the effect of memory impairment caused by stress, aging, and Alzheimer's disease. As we grow older and experience the stresses of life, at about age 40 many of us begin to have trouble remembering things, concentrating, and generally staying mentally sharp. This book contains a four-part program including nutritional, stress-relieving, pharmacological, and mind-body exercise therapies to help people overcome the undesirable effects of normal brain "aging". By controlling cortisol, a hormone that is toxic to the brain and present in excessive levels as we age, Dr. Khalsa's plan can help improve memory and emotional zest. This is the first book to: Describe a program that may diminish age-associated memory impairment Feature a clinical method that can promote memory functioning impaired by Alzheimer's disease Detail the physical damage done to the brain by stress, how it adversely affects memory and our other mental abilities, and what can be done about it.

In the 1860s and 1870s, leading neurologists used animal experimentation to establish that discrete sections of the brain regulate specific mental and physical functions. These discoveries had immediate medical benefits: David Ferrier's detailed cortical maps, for example, saved lives by helping surgeons locate brain tumors and haemorrhages without first opening up the skull. These experiments both incited controversy and stimulated creative thought, because they challenged the possibility of an extra-corporeal soul. This book examines the cultural impact of neurological experiments on late-Victorian Gothic romances by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells and others. Novels like Dracula and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde expressed the deep-seated fears and visionary possibilities suggested by cerebral localization research, and offered a corrective to the linearity and objectivity of late Victorian neurology.

The Poet's Mind is a major study of how Victorian poets thought and wrote about the human mind. It argues that Victorian poets, inheriting from their Romantic forerunners the belief that subjective thoughts and feelings were the most important materials for poetry, used their writing both to give expression to mental processes and to scrutinise and analyse those processes. In this volume Gregory Tate considers why and how psychological analysis became an increasingly important element of poetic theory and practice in the mid-nineteenth century, a time when the discipline of psychology was emerging alongside the growing recognition that the workings of the mind might be understood using the analytical methods of science. The writings of Victorian poets often show an awareness of this psychology, but, at the same time, the language and tone of their psychological verse, and especially their ambivalent use of terms such as 'brain', 'mind', and 'soul', voice an unresolved tension, felt throughout Victorian culture, between scientific theories of psychology and metaphysical or religious accounts of selfhood. The Poet's Mind considers the poetry of Browning, Tennyson, Arnold, Clough, and George Eliot, offering detailed readings of several major Victorian poems, and presenting new evidence of their authors' interest in contemporary psychological theory. Ranging across lyric verse, epic poetry, and the dramatic monologue, the book explores the ways in which poetry simultaneously drew on, resisted, and contributed to the spread of scientific theories of mind in Victorian Britain.

In this unique contribution, Blackman focuses upon the affective capacities of bodies, human and non-human as well as addressing the challenges of the affective turn within the social sciences. Fresh and convincing, this book uncovers the paradoxes and tensions in work in affect studies by focusing on practices and experiences, including voice hearing, suggestion, hypnosis, telepathy, the placebo effect, rhythm and related phenomena. Questioning the traditional idea of mind over matter, as well as discussing the danger of setting up a false distinction between the two, this book makes for an invaluable addition within cultural theory and the recent turn to affect. In a powerful and engaging matter, Blackman discusses the immaterial body across the neurosciences, physiology, media and cultural studies, body studies, artwork, performance, psychology and psychoanalysis. Interdisciplinary in its core, this book is a must for everyone seeking a dynamic and thought provoking analysis of culture and communication today.

With over 350 illustrations, this impressive volume traces the rich history of ideas about the functioning of the brain from its roots in the ancient cultures of Egypt, Greece, and Rome through the centuries into relatively modern times. In contrast to biographically oriented accounts, this book is unique in its emphasis on the functions of the brain and how they came to be associated with specific brain regions and systems. Among the topics explored are vision, hearing, pain, motor control, sleep, memory, speech, and various other facets of intellect. The emphasis throughout is on presenting material in a very readable way, while describing with scholarly acumen the historical evolution of the field in all its amazing wealth and detail. From the opening introductory chapters to the concluding look at treatments and therapies, this monumental work will captivate readers from cover to cover. It will be valued as both an historical reference and as an exciting tale of scientificdiscovery. It is bound to attract a wide readership among students and professionals in the neural sciences as well as general readers interested in the history of science and medicine.